


Bilbo of Moria

by piq_snine



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: AU, BAMF Bilbo, BAMF Smaug, Bilbo the non-dwarf, Dwarf!Bilbo, Erebor not lost, F/M, Gen, In a way, M/M, Minor Character Deaths, Moria not lost, Orcs, Romantic Friendship, Silly fools, Watchout Dwalin, bilbo has a mouth on him, don't worry bilbo broke his nose, dragon rider, dragon tamer, fluff?, heavy in the romance department, i dare you to read this, man loving comes later, mentions of attempted non con, orphan!Bilbo, panicked crowds create deaths, protective brothers Ri, raised by dwarves, sure, they just do, what am i doing with these tags?, you'll really want to read this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 20:43:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 49,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1401820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piq_snine/pseuds/piq_snine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long ago, dragon's used to be servants of kings. Then, their hearts turned evil and are now hunted by the world. </p>
<p>Bilbo, orphaned in the Wilds and adopted by Bombur the baker, has found himself raising a red scaled dragon. His duties take him to a tavern full of Ereborian soldiers where he meets an officer who is about to discover Bilbo's secret. Can Bilbo convince this dwarf to not reveal him? Can he trust this blue eyed, black haired officer?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Ereborian Officer

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [By Your Hand](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1087127) by [ShaeraHaek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShaeraHaek/pseuds/ShaeraHaek). 



> Inspired by this--> http://pandamani.tumblr.com/post/78518769594/thorin-hes-totally-out-of-your-league-i-turned . Kinda taken it in a different direction than initially planned, i think. And, in part, by Rhydwin's By Your Hand. More like a kick start really. It's different from By Your Hand, though.
> 
> Enjoy it!

“You were found by a tree,” The story would always start out. Bilbo was pretty used to this part. He’d been told it all of his life. Bilbo had to lean closer to his father, the dwarrow who had raised him, to listen to a story so old he could recite it word for word. “You were the smallest thing we ever saw. We almost mistaken you for a bundle of blankets left behind by some traveler. You cried something fierce when we lifted you up. We knew that Mahal had blessed us with a son after all. We knew our prayers had been answer. We had a son, and we call you Bilbo. And you are the most perfect son Mahal could bless us with.”

The story starts the same and ends the same. Bilbo was found, Bilbo was given to them by the Maker, Bilbo was their family, and no one else’s. It didn’t matter that he loved things that live more than what you could mine. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t wear boots because it hurt his overgrown feet. It didn’t matter that, in his rush to make Bilbo, Mahal gave him his beard on his feet. He was perfect in their eyes. The best a baker and his wife could ask for. 

Bilbo sat by his father’s bed, not worrying as much as his _adad_ was, about the man’s illness. The healer had already been by and claimed that Bombur, his father, had already been on the mend. Bombur was worrying for no reason, as far as Vala and Bilbo were concerned. But the lad needed a list of ingredients for purchase and had suffered his father’s self-pity and an old story. Bilbo looked down at his hairy feet and scoffed at his father’s dramatics. The rotund dwarf heaved mightily and sighed pathetically, lungs still rattling. 

“Father, the ingredients,” Bilbo encouraged. Bombur looked over at his eldest son (as he and Vala had been able to have children of their own after all). 

“Ah, well, let’s see.” Bombur hummed and Bilbo shook his head in light exasperation. “Arrow root flour, eggs from Arzun, maybe four dozen, three bags of yeast, we’ll need the copper pots from the smith. And make sure there are no flaws, we need to make the sugar pan this coming day.”

“Is that all?” Bilbo asked, standing up and fixing his cloth themistokles and grabbed his gauntleted gloves. 

“Well, that’s all we’ll need for tomorrow. Yes, that’s all. Tell your brother I need water, please.” Bilbo rolled his eyes as his father fell back asleep. The water could wait, no matter how much Bombur pretended to be more ill than he is. 

Bilbo made his way down the rickety wooden steps and into the main room where his younger siblings played. Mikhelh, the eldest behind Bilbo, was loading up a basket of breads. He was on delivery today and Bilbo decided not to ask his busy brother. “Adnzeth, I have to get some supplies, father wants some water. And make sure the wyrm doesn’t follow me again, please.”

The request was unspoken but the eldest daughter, the third oldest, stood up immediately and went to get the water pitcher. Laz, Biuri and Doka, the triplets, sat dressing up the mischievous red wyrm again. Bilbo was still unsure who was who since Laz, the only boy of the three, began dressing like the girls on some days and the other two would dress as lads the others. It was aggravating enough that they seemed more identical as they grew. 

Bilbo gave the triplets kisses on the head, patted Adnzeth’s shoulder as she passed by trying not to tip the pitcher or drop the clay cup, and followed Mikhelh out the door. The eldest son of Bombur ignored the begging calls of his most precious pet from inside their house. He smiled, knowing that the triplets certainly would keep the little thing occupied until his return.

“Is father still sick?” Mikh asked his older brother as they walked side by side for a bit to the stables. 

“Even if he is, he’s milking it for all he’s worth.” Bilbo smiled at his brother who shook his head. “I think mother and he are fighting again.”

“She wants to change the recipe for the lion’s bread, she thinks the heels burn too much when baked and the jam is too runny.” Mikh didn’t struggle with the burdened basked as Bilbo would have at his age. For as much as the Maker had given him to his parents, he was decidedly not-dwarf in some areas. And there were all sorts of mean dwarflings out there who willing to hurt him because he was different. And that, in turn more than anything, made him strong. He didn’t have the strength most did at his age, but he was lean, still thick with muscle as he is a baker like his father, hefting sacks of flour as big as he had made him strong.

“It’s a recipe that great grandfather had made. Father’s not going to change it readily.” Bilbo offered in defense of their father. 

Their mother, Vala, was a sweet enough lass when she wanted to be and she too was a baker’s child. So she brought with her family recipes, too. Vala’s version of lion bread had a softer crust and the jam in the middle was more like a thick paste. Where Bombur’s family’s lion bread had a tougher crust and when the heels were sliced off you could dip it into the gooey jam and let it sop in to the harder crust. 

Bilbo preferred their father’s, because of the sopping jam-crust, but liked the jam paste mother used with other breads. He just would never tell them that. It was a constant battle for Bombur to keep making the lion breads his way rather than mother’s.

“But it’s such a petty argument. They could just make both and sell them separately.” Mikhelh had always been the diplomat.

“I suppose they could. Imagine something like the Flour War again, though.” They both shuddered. 

“Ah! I hear there are soldiers here from Erebor! We should go to the tavern later before they leave.” Mikhelh was at least a decade younger than Bilbo and the elder brother refused to begin to think about the trouble he would be in if he brought Mikh into the tavern again. He wasn’t even old enough to be in there. Bilbo ruffled his head before disinclining and taking off inside the stables to get the pony and cart, promising to be back for dinner.

“Coward!” Mikhelh called out before cursing for dropping the basket of breads.

\--

Bilbo mentally reviewed his list of items he needed and cursed when he realized that he was forgetting to get his pet something to eat later this week. He pulled out his purse and counted coins and tallied the favors he’d done for Rignak. He should have enough for his growing wyrm, the beast steadily needed more and more food as the days lingered on. Sighing heavily he turned the pony and cart around and headed to the Blind Ogre Meadhall. 

It wasn’t that far of a journey, the travelers’ halls were wide enough in Moria when descending down that Bilbo didn’t feel too awkward dragging the pony behind him. 

“Bilbo!” A rough dwarrowdam’s voice rang out through the halls. The non-dwarf shuddered when he recognized the black haired girl. 

“Hullo, Nazin.” Bilbo dragged out as if in pain. The taller girl wrapped a meaty arm around his shoulders as he pulled the reins on his pony. She was a soldier in training and was always wrapped carefully in livery, Bilbo thought she smelled like a stockyard most days.

“I was wondering why we hadn’t seen you around lately.” Nazin tried for a sweet voice, “Gilb and I have missed you!” 

Nazin was his friend, and so was Gilb, on most occasions. When they weren’t with the rest of the trainee’s, they were actually very nice. But around their other friends they were really rude and crude. Bilbo didn’t mind it; he was usually too busy working with his family to care about them. 

“Did you know that they have an open on all dragons? Gilb and I were going to go hunting for one out in the Wilds when we get our transfers.” Bilbo didn’t bother to tell her that their transfers were most likely going to send them first to some small fort before they are sent to the dangerous Wilds. “We’re going to sell it for hundreds of pounds. We’ll split it with you if you come with us. Gilb’s always fancied you, you know.” 

“I wouldn’t let that weedy dizzy-eyed codpiece touch me with a ten foot stick when he is in a mood. He’s got all the manners of a cockered pox-marked wagtail if you ask me.” Bilbo said resolutely. 

He had been witness to just how much of a fumbling flap-dragon Gilb could be when trying to woo someone. He’d also been on the receiving end of his panty-girdle pulling hands on one too many occasions when they snuck a barrel of mead from Rignak. Gilb was foul with his words and mouth when he though Bilbo would let him ‘ride him out’. That was another reason why he hadn’t minded when he and his friends started drifting. That and he happened to have a dragon living in his house.

Drakes had, long ago, been the friends of kings, before evil entered their hearts and corrupted the creatures. Since then they had been hunted to near extinction. So when Bilbo found that what he thought to be a large rose quartz he found in the mines one day hatched into a dragon, he’d been constantly worried that the little wyrm would grow to be one of those evil sky snakes. But it was apparent that the little beastie had no such compunctions to razing homes and eating dwarves.

Not unless you count the triplets’ dolls and houses. 

“Ease your anger, Bilbo. I wouldn’t want you going off into the Wilderness anyways. You’ve got no training and can barely even lift a sword.” Which wasn’t true, if he could lift over one-hundred pounds of flour then he could definitely lift a sword… problem was, he never knew what to do with it once he had one. His grip was too soft, his movements clunky and without a warriors finesse. He also tripped while walking normally, he shuddered to think of how he would fair in a sword fight. “Besides, Gilb’s got himself a pretty dame that gives him what he wants. I think he’s forgotten how you broke his nose the last time he tried bedding you.”

“That goatish crook-pated whey-face deserved it. I don’t think I’d ever let anyone touch me like that. I didn’t like it with you and I definitely wouldn’t like it with him. No offense, Nazin.” Bilbo apologized to the dwarrowdam. 

It was true they had experimented in their younger years. Which dwarf wouldn’t? But Bilbo found sex to be too unappealing for his taste. Perhaps he just needed a different partner with no hang-ups like his friends. Gilb was practically a rent-boy, he’d sleep with just about anyone and Nazin was too forceful in bed to find pleasure in her body. 

“I know what you mean. Someone told me that he has warts. I wouldn’t want him to touch you either.” Nazin said more softly. Bilbo shuddered to think of catching an illness like that. Now he was happier for being able to push off his drunken friend on too many nights. “Well, I know you’re busy and I’ve got to head to the Blind Ogre before the soldiers leave. I hear the prince is actually marching with them.”

She waggled her thin eyebrows and curled her sideburns suggestively. Bilbo scoffed at her no doubted lewd thoughts rolling through her head. “I have to head to the Hall too; I’ve got favors to collect from Rignak.”

“By and by, Bilbo, you’re lucky about being able to be the anvil to his hammer, even if you probably didn’t like it. (You’re so frigid that way.) I’ve heard that he doesn’t just let _anyone_ into his bed.” Nazin inspected the dirt under her nails as the honey-haired non-dwarf stuttered. 

“I-I should say! I did NOT sleep with that old fobbing idle-headed dwarf. I only baked his niece a cake while he ran the tavern! He was behind on his rents and loans that he couldn’t pay me so I- YOU!”

If Bilbo could have, he would have tackled the dwarrowdam to the ground and given her what for. She sniggered at the rude jest and shrugged into Bilbo’s punch to her arm. He laughed with her after settling down a bit and his pony, Axen, whinnied nervously behind him. 

“Your braids are nice today, Bilbo. I like this new one.” She pointed to the one dangling on the side of his head; a copper bead weighing it down to swing with his every step. 

“Mother gave it to me, said I could start wearing hers as it seems I’m not willing to find my One.” Bilbo played with the bead in his left hand; she watched as he fingered the cheap adornment favorably and smiled gently. “And father said I should just grow my hair and wrap it around me if I couldn’t grow a proper beard like him. _Sigh_ , I think the Maker could have at least taken a bit more time on me than he did. I would give anything to grow a beard.”

“Oh, no! You look too pretty like this without a beard. You don’t know how many dwarves Gilb and I’ve had to beat back. They kept thinking you were prettier than me!” Nazin said with such honesty Bilbo had a hard time finding it offensive. 

He didn’t like being so ‘pretty’ and he doubted that he was found that attractive by most. If anything, his lack of beard kept him looking too young. He let her know of these insecurities and she ‘hmm’d about them. They were silent the last two blocks until she darted off ahead of him without even looking back. 

So it came to it that she was back to ignoring him. He appreciated her friendship when he had it but hated how quickly she would abandon him for more of any other dwarrow. 

Bilbo spit his long braid out of his way when it slumped over his shoulder. He tied his pony to a post and tightened the cloth over his cart before stepping foot in to the rowdy Hall. The Blind Ogre was a mead hall which boasted the best drink this level in Moria. Closer to the forges and mines, the Blind Ogre got all the rowdiest and unruly of dwarves. But today, he found that it was true that the Ereborean soldiers were here. 

They had their scale mail hanging to their knees, thick wool tunics embroidered with richly threads of their family colors. Their hair was wirier than the Moria lot, thick and thin braids more intricate and tight than here. They, all of them, were more regal than Bilbo could ever hope to be. Their cloth more softer looking, their mail and belt buckles shined like the brightest of jewels polished to reflect, their hair and beards thick and braided. Well, not that one. He had no hair on either side of his head and a row down the middle that stood straight up for a hand and a half. Bilbo wondered how much bear grease was holding up that soldiers’ hair. For as young as a soldier as he looked he already had warriors markings. There were tattoos around his scars, blue and fresh looking. And the dwarf that he was talking to had the most beautiful hair and braids Bilbo had ever seen. 

The dwarf’s beard had two silver beaded braids on either side of his chin, two at his temple and the most piercing of sapphire eyes he’d ever seen – although he hadn’t seen too many sapphires that were as bright as his eyes. Bilbo felt all the more alienated that he didn’t have a beard like everyone else here. He played with his fingernails, peeling them from his cuticles and dropping the filings on the peanut shelled floor. 

“Just a minute, I’ll be right there. You’re here about the meat, eh?” Rignak was busy today and both his wife and niece were rushing about delivering hot plates of food and cold mead. The tall, round dwarf shuffled around and spoke over his shoulder to Bilbo. 

The son of Bombur took another opportunity to scrutinize the braids and beads around him. He wished so much that he could afford a silver bead, just one. He’d thread it through his hair and hide it in his braid. Or maybe he’d find a way to thread it in his baby dragon’s furry mane. Would the fur last? Or turn to scales? Already the tuft that was initially on his belly had turned to a golden skin of a reptile. 

“Hello, little one.” Bilbo squeaked and jumped when the sapphire eyed dwarf appeared directly before him. The dwarrow’s voice was deep and slightly lilting, his northern tongue accented the Moria dialect. “I apologize; I did not mean to frighten you.”

Bilbo took a moment to admire the spread of the other dwarrow’s hands as they were held up to ward off his fright. They weren’t gloved like most soldiers so there were scars on his knuckles and open palm. Bilbo swallowed thickly as he realized he hadn’t said anything in return. 

“I’m 67.” Bilbo blurted out.

“What?” The black haired dwarf cocked his head in confusion, his thick brows furrowing.

“I’m 67, I’m not that young.” Bilbo picked at his nails more and realized they would start bleeding soon. 

“Sorry.” The dwarf offered with a crooked smile. “But you’re still too young to be in here.”

“I can be where I want when I’m not indulging in libations.” Bilbo felt a need to pull out his largest words, the regal air on this dwarf was greater than that of the rest of the soldiers. He felt the back of his neck prickle with embarrassment at being confronted with such a cultured and cocksure dwarf. “Besides, what I do here is none of your business, soldier, as I have my own to conduct.”

“What did you call him?” The mohawked dwarf charged with two full cups of mead. Bilbo would have squeaked again if he weren’t already feeling so small with these two thick-bodied blunderers. 

“Dwalin.” It sounded like an order, Bilbo thought, and it was followed by the other dwarf. He felt rooted to the spot himself when the terse voice barked at the other soldier. “I apologize for my friend. He gets a might bit unruly with his … libations.” 

Great, he was mocking Bilbo. He probably thought that Bilbo was just some wild dwarfling pretending to be older than he was. Bilbo flinched when the dwarf lifted a hand to his dangling copper bead. 

“I like this.” He said, tugging lightly on his braid, he rolled the oblong bead between his fingers while staring into Bilbo’s eyes. Cocky smile still on his face the dwarf ignored his friend Dwalin behind him. “It suites your color, soft and pleasant to the eye.”

Was he- was he flirting with Bilbo? No. He couldn’t be. Dwarves were usually more forward with their intentions and wants. Was it different for these more… decorous (was that the word for them? Cultured, royal –like and most likely too polite?) dwarves of the North? Bilbo heard Dwalin scoff behind this dwarf and took the opportunity to inspect the depth of color in those eyes before him.

Some parts were black, like flecks of coal, and others were light, as if the sapphire was riddled with diamonds. They shined brightly in their color and Bilbo felt jealous for their beauty. 

“Do you know, dwarfling, who this is?” Dwalin broke Bilbo’s trance. But he didn’t miss how those eyes narrowed. 

“OH!” Bilbo held his hands up to his mouth, covering his lips as he gasped. “You’re an officer! I’m so sorry for being curt with you.”

Bilbo apologized and Dwalin sputtered, looking all the more like a dissembling flap-mouthed bugbear. Dwalin seemed like a gossip anyways and would most likely spread word on how an officer – a general maybe – was talked down on by a lowly commoner. But his chastisement was interrupted by a bark of laughter from the officer. 

“Never mind you your tongue, dwarfling.” The officer teased some more. “It’s quite refreshing to experience such brashness in someone so… comely.”

A blush appeared on the officer, “I mean- well, I apologize for my forwardness. Fondling your bead and attempting to flatter you with pretty words.”

“You call that an attempt, my dear officer?” Bilbo could tease back, though he had no idea why he felt so comfortable with the idea. “Why you’re more like an artless dog-headed harpy than a wayward tongue-waggling poet. You have no fear of flattering me.”

There was more laughter from the officer and more spittle flying from Dwalin. Bilbo felt proud of himself for making the dwarrow laugh. All of a sudden there was a hacking from behind him and he realized then that the officer hadn’t removed his hand from his bead as he walked right into the hand. The other dwarf apologized and retracted his limb and Bilbo gave him a look.

“I’m sorry Rignak, I didn’t mean to ignore you.” Bilbo thought that the owner of the hall had been trying to clear his throat to gain the smaller dwarf’s attention. “I have my purse here (he dug it out and placed the heavy bag on the counter, Rignak still coughing), and I suppose I can use my credit. I have to go, father’s waiting on me.”

Bilbo grabbed the canvas wrapped beef flank and hefted it over his shoulders with ease. “If you’ll excuse me, I do have to get back. My father is, erm, sick and needs this meat. I have to get going.”

“That seems too heavy for a trip back to the residential halls. Let me help you.” The officer supplied his empty hands and Bilbo retracted quickly, almost falling.

“No! I can handle it.” Bilbo resituated the flank on his shoulder, “I have a cart and pony. I’m not weak.”

“I would never dream of accusing you of such. But let me help, please.” The officer begged and Bilbo almost wanted to comply, even if Dwalin was spilling the two cups of mead onto the floor. Rignak yelled at the soldier.

“I said I was fine. Let me be on my way.” Bilbo weaved his way through the Ereborean soldiers and noticed Nazin in the corner gaping at him. 

He marched his way out of the hall, distantly aware that Dwalin had found his tongue and was cursing his officer. Bilbo shook his head at such rudeness and dropped his burden for Axen to carry. The reigns finally untied (his fingers fumbling with the simple knot he always uses) Bilbo pushed the animal back, forcing the cart to turn the way he needed to expertly and began his trek back up the travelers’ halls. 

Throughout his walk, Bilbo wondered at the officer’s curious temperament. He’d been around the Lord of Moria before, but never actually having to speak with the surly dwarf, but he could bet that the officer was of better stock than the Lord. He scoffed at the idea but he remained resolute in his opinion of the-

A name, they never exchanged names. 

Bilbo groaned and pulled at his hair. How could he have forgotten to ask for a name? He could have prayed to the Valar for his protection as they made their march. He’d heard, just the same as any other dwarf here, that the king was suffering from attacks by a white orc. The Ereborean soldiers had met the Gundabad orc somewhere in the open plains west of Mirkwood and chased them into the Misty Mountains. After their victory, they apparently recuperated and came to Moria for respite and to replenish ranks and supplies before marching back to Erebor. 

The non-dwarf, with his furry feet gathering the coal dust he walked through, wondered just how great of an officer his was. His officer. Right. As if he knew him for long enough to claim him. ‘Claim him’, he really must stop using such words. 

Bilbo turned past his family’s bakery and noticed lamp lights were doused for the night and pulled Axen’s reigns harder. He got more water from the squares’ fountain and made his way back home, water sloshing in sealed wooden barrels and skeins. Children’s screams of delight and surprise rose from his house at the end of the alley. Bilbo smiled, wondering what type of trouble the triplets got themselves, or his dragon, into. 

He was no closer to finishing tying off Axen to carry in the week’s supplies when the red wyrm came bounding out, pushing out a cry of sanctuary, a doll’s dress falling off the chubby beast. Bilbo laughed and scooped up his precious and cooed at him, trying to get him to calm down. The beast cried more, sounding like a cat’s call and the whine of a dog, his tongue working on syllables sounding like he said ‘oww’.

“Oh, my baby, are they torturing you again?” Bilbo patted the small beasts’ soft scaled head and listened to Mikhelh rail on the triplets; chaos reigning in this house. “I’m sorry for being gone for so long.”

“What is that?” A deep voice rumbled through the stone alleyway. The backdoor to his house slammed closed, causing Bilbo to jump higher than when in the mead hall. “That’s a dragon.”

It was that same officer that he met in the hall. And Bilbo clutched his crying pet even closer to his chest, the dwarf soldier advancing on him in the dark.

“Do you know it’s illegal to harbor a dragon?”

“Please…” Bilbo begged, fear shaking him to his core. “Please don’t say anything.”

The officer reached his hand up, making another show of his impossibly large hands, and grabbed at Bilbo’s precious baby.


	2. And He Is Dragonscreamer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oakenshield gives Bilbo some advice, makes a law, and writes a letter.
> 
> Bilbo is blushing like a maid, hearing from His Officer after so long. But what is that dreadful tolling in the distance?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're gonna hate me... you are. 
> 
> ADDED TAGS. PLEASE VIEW.
> 
> Warning: Some horrible things are going to happen in the deep darkness. Please prepare yourself. It's not graphic. Mentions of blood.

“Oh, my baby, are they torturing you again?” Bilbo patted the small beasts’ soft scaled head and listened to Mikhelh rail on the triplets; chaos reigning in this house as usual. “I’m sorry for being gone for so long.”

“What is that?” A deep voice rumbled through the stone alleyway. The backdoor to his house slammed closed, causing Bilbo to jump higher than when in the mead hall. “That’s a dragon.”

It was that same officer that he met in the hall. And Bilbo clutched his crying pet even closer to his chest, the dwarf soldier advancing on him in the dark.

“Do you know it’s illegal to harbor a dragon?”

“Please…” Bilbo begged, fear shaking him to his core. “Please don’t say anything.”

The officer reached his hand up, making another show of his impossibly large hands, and grabbed at Bilbo’s precious baby. He retracted it before he had gotten too close to the creature; the young non-dwarf pulled his drake closer.

“Will he bite?” Was all the older dwarf said his eyes questioning and pleading in the same breath.

“Aye, he’ll bite your whole hand off if you threaten us.” The officer looked skeptically at Bilbo. “He’s done it before, don’t push him.”

The little wyrm was curled in Bilbo’s arms, shaking in his embrace. The officer gave another look before reaching again for the dragon. It was a testament to the beasts’ fear of whatever he had been running from that he didn’t pay any attention to the larger dwarf. So when an unfamiliar hand touched his heated skin he jumped, like his owner, and burrowed into Bilbo’s thick coat.

The dwarfling laughed at his pet’s antics and looked up to the officer, only to find him already looking at him, eyes connecting again.

“I am Bilbo Bomburul.” Bilbo supplied. The officer winced and pulled his hand back and settled into a slightly confident pose.

“They call me Oakenshield.” The black haired dwarf provided his descriptive name, an outer name not given, and Bilbo was left thinking that the other dwarf was of lower birth than he was. Or not given an outer name like he had been. Bilbo didn’t care one way or the other what the dwarrow’s inner name or even his patronymic name was (he obviously didn’t care for his inner name, which was Oakenshields to keep). He had some name to call the officer, and he quite like the way it sounded.

“How did you come by it?” Bilbo patted the lump of dragon who was trying to crawl backwards out of his coats. Oakenshield watched the poor creature struggle with a smirk.

“I lost my shield during the final battle against the Gundabad orcs. I picked up an oaken branch and used it to protect me.” Oakenshield pulled back his cloak and revealed said branch/shield. Bilbo saw many cuts in the shield and wondered how it could have possibly survived a battle. “You really shouldn’t have that wyrm. You could be put in the stocks for it. I would hate to see that happen to you.”

Oakenshield offered his advice and went to pet the head of the little simpering beast. Bilbo looked up to the sapphire eyed officer and bristled.

“If you mean to threaten me,” he said as menacingly as possible. Though what type of fear he wished to put in a soldier who had faced down orcs, he had no idea.

“No! I wouldn’t. I only mean to… Well, please just be careful.” Officer Oakenshield said, Bilbo still didn’t know his rank and the dwarf apparently didn’t care for it for he didn’t supply it.

“I can take care of myself, thank you very much.” Behind Bilbo there was a crash of pottery and pots and a child’s scream, followed by his brother’s stern voice. “I really must be going.”

“Fields. Open air. He’ll need that soon.” Oakenshield reached out to the turning dwarfling, trying to stay his welcome. “He will only get bigger. Have you planned on how to keep him secret?”

“If only there were no open on the hunting of such creatures, I wouldn’t have to worry about them.” Bilbo sighed, knowing that the officer couldn’t do anything about it. “I can figure it out, if anything I can bring him to the open chasms. They don’t mine there anymore.”

“And wake fowl creatures who lurk in the dark? No, wait for the king’s orders. I- I hear he’s about to lift the open. Just wait until then. I have an ear with the prince, I can ensure that your pet,”

“Smaug.”

“Smaug will be protected.”

“What about the wild ones? You think the king or prince will lift the hunt on them? They’re the troubling ones. Smaug is innocent, kind, and actually afraid of the triplets.”

“Triplets?” Oakenshield’s eyebrows disappeared in his hairline, which was a feat for he had such a smooth, large forehead.

“Aye, wee devils more like. Well,” Bilbo pointed behind him, “you saw what they were dressing him up as.”

Oakenshield laughed and Bilbo decided he very much liked the sound. His voice bounced off the ally walls with the sound of rolling thunder, or a rock slide. Dangerous, beautiful to witness, if you were a safe distance away. Oakenshield looked like the type of dwarf who would be capable of rendering even the most deadly of foes speechless and in shock with his beauty as a dwarrow or most definitely for the underlying fierceness.

“Yes, he should be frightened. Girls are more terrible beasts than dragons, if they so choose. Dis was like that with her pets.”

“Oh, y-your daughter is the same?” Bilbo stuttered, wondering why he suddenly felt angry. He could feel the rumbling growl of his little beast.

“Daughter? Ah! No, she’s my sister. Thirty years my junior. We have a brother too, though he’s a gentle fool.” Oakenshield said with a confused gentleness. Like they had to live up to some incredibly high standard, and despite his love for his brother, he seemed disappointed that the lad couldn’t perform.

“BILBO!” A child’s scream, Adnzeth, resounded in the small two story house.

“I must go. Father is sick and mother must be out. The children are by themselves.” Bilbo looked hopefully at the officer shifting in front of him. “Thank you, for the encouragement, however hollow it might be in its results.”

“I do have an ear with the prince, the king too, I will ensure your safety and Smaug’s.” Oakenshield grabbed Bilbo’s elbow in earnest, dragging him closer to his own body. Bilbo could feel the heat radiating off of the broad dwarf, and were he any less of a dwarrow, he would have blushed at their closeness in all that it didn’t mean.

“Now you’re just a liar. But, I thank ye all the same.” Bilbo finally turned to untie the canvas on the cart and heard Oakenshield shuffle some more.

“Will I see you again?”

“Probably in the stocks, next time you come.” Bilbo said while he kept busy with the ropes. They were already untied so he fiddled with them to keep from turning around.

“That’s not funny.” Oakenshield said firmly.

“No it’s not. But if you don’t leave now, how will you be able to keep your promise in time? You lot leave tomorrow don’t you? Ye’d better get going, soldier, and stop dawdling.” Bilbo smirked, finally turning around to see Oakenshield standing firmly at the end of the cart gripping the edge.

"Will I see you again?” Oakenshield begged for an answer. “Will you visit me in Erebor?”

“I will not. I am the eldest son of a baker. I wouldn’t have the time, nor gold, to afford a visit.”

“I will pay for your expenses. Please, I wish to see you again.” Oakenshield got closer, begging some more.

Bilbo shook his head at the madness of this situation. Here he was, a lowly baker’s son talking to a soldier who had risen in the ranks from his social status (whatever they were) and was now a respected officer. The dwarfling didn’t feel like he had earned the right to even be near this magnificently capable dwarf. He felt encouraged by his success but still the more nervous at the differences in status. But the madness was in their subtle flirting. It was in their ease of conversation and comfortableness at the other.

“Then you must come to me.” Bilbo said resolutely, turning back to the ropes. Smaug was finally able to escape his coats and was sniffing around the canvas top in search for his dinner that lay beneath it. “I cannot travel, I have duties and I’m still not of age. We are a traditional family and my parent’s would not appreciate even this conversation without a chaperon.”

“You act as if I’m trying to court you, child.” Oakenshield smirked wryly.

“Aren’t you?” Bilbo teased back.

“Not yet.”

“In eight years I expect you to be knocking at my door.” Bilbo’s heart began fluttering at the presumptions. He didn’t think the soldier would be willing to keep his promise should he find a more capable dwarrow than he, one with money and status.

“Gladly.” Oakenshield made a bow to the dwarfling. “Until then, Bilbo son of Bombur.”

“Until then, Officer Oakenshield.” Bilbo spared him a glance, and only that, and watched the soldier walk away, confident strides eating up the ground as he exited the alleyway.

As soon as the soldier turned the corner Bilbo grabbed at his fluttering heart and gasped (maybe some of his father’s dramatics had rubbed off on him). Bilbo felt like he couldn’t get enough air, or perhaps had too much air, his head was spinning madly and his limbs felt like jelly. He couldn’t stand properly to support his pet who jumped on him so he fell to the ground (father’s dramatics were rubbing off on him). But he didn’t care, he was on fire, he was weightless, he felt like he’d climbed to the top of a peak and faced down the largest of orcs, the most fearsome wild dragon. He felt as if he could run forever, to Erebor and back again.

“Bilbo!!!” His mother yelled, “Where are you with those foodstuffs?”

And Bilbo’s high was gone. The crash left him smoldering in the residual heat, veins burning with energy. He’d never felt like this before. He’d never felt like he could do anything, be anything, and yet still be only him, with his dwarf, his dwarf who was coming back for him.

Bilbo had gone to bed smiling that night. His shared bed with Mikhelh and Adnzeth was crowded, as usual, but he didn’t mind. He dreamed of diamond dust sapphires and a warm sun-spun cloak enveloping him fully. He felt he could burn at the bare skin touch of Oakenshield if he’d done it. If his fingers had touched any part of his skin he would have been nothing but a cinder of ash from the touch. And if he’d kissed him! Oh! It was improper to be thinking of the soldier like this.

The night was too short for his dreaming, and the next day too long with the lack of sleep. But Bilbo still had so much energy he couldn’t even find himself upset that both of his friends had been recruited by the Ereborean war host. Nazin could keep her prince, Bilbo had his officer.

\--

“He’s getting too big to be inside for another year, lad.” Vala spoke to her eldest, her mousey braids swept up and out of the way of becoming caked in flour.

Smaug was waist high on Bilbo, his wings had finally come in and he was beginning to stretch them out. Often the dragon would knock over chairs, tables and pottery when trying to stretch his still growing wings. Fur gone from his fresh hardening scales, the blood veins which meandered through the pale red wings looked like rivers on a map. Bilbo felt bad that he wasn’t able to figure out how to get his dragon safely to the chasms in this past year. And with no word from Oakenshield or ban on hunting the beasts, Bilbo just couldn’t bring him out of the house.

He couldn’t bear to think about Oakenshield either, for that matter. He was, after all this time, conflicted on his feelings for the Ereborian soldier. On one hand he could still remember the color of his eyes, the rumble of his voice, and the steel grip of his hands. Thinking of all those things still made him swoon. Then there was being upset about him not contacting him after all this time. Of not even sending one raven with news, with… anything! Oakenshield hadn’t kept his promise (though Bilbo made excuse after excuse) and he found he was cross with the dwarf.

But his eyes…

“Bilbo,” Vala prompted her son.

He stared down at the lump of dough he was pressing out for a cake and noticed it was already starting to rise. He cursed himself and gently punched the cake down and folded it carefully.

This past year had made him a ball of nerves. He had still been afraid of Oakenshield going back on his initial promise and he waited for the Lord’s soldiers to take him away and slaughter Smaug. The family’s punishment would have been severe if they had been caught. Bilbo didn’t know how he had ever thought that keeping the dragon once he had hatched was a good idea. He should have tossed the creature into a chasm, turned him over to the authorities, given him to his parents to handle properly. But once those golden orbs peeled open and looked at him, Bilbo was lost to the creature.

So it came that he cared for the drake. Smaug had been intelligent enough, or working on instinct, to sit in the blazing fireplace whenever he shed his scales and skin. The first few times he had done that Bilbo worried because he couldn’t find the little beastie. And when he came back smelling of burnt wood and ash, Bilbo figured it out. The fire helped the little one to shed its skin faster and to reinforce his scales. He also figured it helped the blood flow quicker for the development of his wings.

Smaug grew, ate some more, shed, grew, and now he was almost too big to fit comfortably in the largest room they had. Bilbo and Smaug literally cried the first night Smaug couldn’t fit on the dwarflings chest at night. And the wyrm had been too afraid to sleep in a room adjacent to the triplets’ rooms. So Bilbo moved out into the living room with his pet and they curled up on the floor where Smaug kept the dwarfling warm at nights.

Bilbo looked down at Smaug, sleeping by his feet keeping them almost too warm, and smiled sadly. He knew how big dragon’s got. He worried someone would soon find out they had a drake in their home and that would be the end of it. It was these times that Bilbo still believed that Oakenshield really was working on getting a ban on the hunting of the dragons. And not that he knew anything about politics, but he knew that the spread of word or delivery of news or postings took long enough as it was. One year just couldn’t allow the approval of the ban, discussions, votes, everything that Bilbo didn’t know that happened with such laws and orders. So, there was still room for hope, even if it were fading.

Bilbo smelled the hairs on his feet burning after Smaug had hiccupped.

And there was his other issue. Drakes breathed fire. And their house was made of wood, not stone.

\--

“I wish he still had fur.” One of the triplets said, scratching the drake behind his growing horns.

“I wish he could fly.” Another one said forcing Smaug’s winged thumbs to flex its talon.

“I wish he would eat Mali.” The last said. Bilbo assumed it was Laz, as Mali was a dwarrowdam and… well… Bilbo just assumed that one was Laz. He had a more square jaw than the girls… or was that Biuri?

“I wish you three would be quiet.” Adnzeth grumped. She had recently been dumped by her friends because they were a year older than Adnzeth and were able to join the soldier’s academy. She had thought that she would be able to escape working in the bakery this year and join her friends. But she was still too young and they were still too poor.

Bilbo sighed, flipping another page of his book, _Zhena’s Guide to Avoiding Elves_. It was written out of spite of the elf king Thranduil, who had promised her allegiance and betrayed her trust with his double speech.

 _”Elves,”_ she had written, _”Cannot be counted on for council, for their words can cut and console with the same breath."_ There was few comedic relief, with pranks pulled on the Elves, the name calling, and the general distrust Elves had for Dwarves that Bilbo could overlook the ignorance of culture and her arrogance.

Bilbo sighed and closed his book. He lost interest three chapters ago but had nothing else to do. He reverted to watching the triplets crawl around on the pony sized dragon. Smaug, ever loving and faithful to the family, laid there, motionless, as if he were dead, as if he-

“Watch it!” Smaug squeaked. One of the kids stepped a heel in his tender wings.

“Sorry Smaug!” Doka, Bilbo was sure, giggled and straddled the red beast. “Forward my soldiers! On to battle the great foes of the world! Tharkun, use your magic to blast away those who oppose your King- er, Queen!”

So that was Laz.

“Your majesty! Have pity on your poor soldiers,” That one had to be Biuri, whenever Bilbo figured out who was Biuri and who was Laz, it was easy to point out the other. Biuri followed Laz in everything. But Doka was pretty good at keeping up. Both girls threw their hands up on their foreheads, “we are exhausted and hungry.”

“Avast! Food!” Doka pointed at mother and father as they came in laden with fresh meat pies.

The three of them bobbed and weaved and Bilbo crossed his eyes trying to follow just one of them. Adnzeth huffed and stood up, following the kids. Smaug breathed a heavy sigh of relief as the triplets were finally off of him. They’d been like that for the last few hours.

Bilbo chuckled at his friend. “Tired of playing pony yet?”

The dwarfling scratched between Smaug’s shoulder blades, where he liked it, and walked with the beast to the kitchen. Smaug could only stick his head past the threshold comfortably when the whole family was sitting down to eat. He watched where his wings would rest before laying down again, keeping his tail still as Mikhalh came bounding downstairs.

“I’m tired of being in this house, brother.” Smaug had gotten in the habit of calling Bilbo such. He had asked who his parents were, when he was able to talk, and was disappointed when Bilbo could only shrug. His own origin story lent inspiration for telling Smaug his.

He was found as a quartz stone. He was brought home. He hatched. He was Bilbo’s, and no one else’s – though that part was a stretch as the whole family took part in raising and helping Smaug. The story had more to it, but all in all that was the whole of it. Smaug had been acceptable to that rather than the awkward shoulder shrugs Bilbo first started to give.

“I know, but there’s no way we can get you out of here.” Bilbo replied.

“Then what are you going to do when I get too big for the living room?” Smaug pouted, steam coming through his nose as his heated belly seared the stone floor.

“Knock down walls, son.” Bombur talked around his slice of meat pie. Smaug blew out the steam, heating the house.

“Now stop that! You know better.” Bilbo chastised his ‘brother’. The dwarfling wasn’t so unused to calling out a child… he helped raise his own siblings after all.

“Sorry.” Smaug huffed.

Bilbo stood next to his dragon, not willing to eat when Smaug couldn’t. He was supposed to meet Rignak’s wife in the market’s soon. He was going to exchange a bag of flour, some of Vala’s lion bread, and some of uncle Bifur’s carved toys that Bilbo had never used (the cracked dwarf still sent children’s toys to Bilbo even if he were too old for them. He was too nice to tell Bifur that he was too old and actually wished for leather work from Bifur’s wife) for a calf.

“I wish that _soldier_ would have kept his word. I hate to keep leaving you here alone.”

“With _them_.” Smaug’s eyes widened as if recounting all of the times the triplets have dressed him up in dolls clothes, taught him to speak like a woman (to which certain words are used), and began riding him like a pony around the house in endless turns. Bilbo thought he actually was thinking of those times.

“I know what you mean.” Bilbo leaned down and patted his drake’s head and went to the kitchen to grab the pre-packed trade items. “I’ll be back soon. We can cook when I get back.”

“If you roast it first the skin is soooo crispy!” Smaug lifted his head and whined.

“Ugh, and have you spitting up hair again? No. Even cats have better decorum than you.”

“Liar.”

“Pushover.”

“Rump-fed vassal.”

“Mewling hedge-born weasel.”

“Mangled boil-brained nut-hook.”

“BOYS!” Bilbo and Smaug jumped ten feet high when Vala finally interrupted them. “Son, I think you have something you need to do. Zhehel isn’t going to wait forever for you.”

Bilbo turned and stuck his tongue out to Smaug, to which the dragon blew a perfect mushroom of smoke in Bilbo’s face. The dwarfling coughed and retreated, slinging threats over his shoulder.

“Where you learn these curses I’ll never know.” Vala shook her head and looked a little green at both of the males’ language. 

The dwarfling laughed and patted Smaugs' raised head before heading out the door with the load of trade goods. It was heavy so Bilbo slung it onto his shoulder and carried the bulk of the weight with one arm. He cocked his body to where the weight of it was being carried by his body rather than limb. 

The first thing Bilbo noticed about the crowd was the unusually loud buzzing in the air. It was as if he had found himself in the mines with young dwarves. They didn't know enough at first to use Ingleshmek rather than talking. In the mines, it was too loud with the pounding of hammers and picks that if you even tried to speak... well, let's just say it was really loud. Bilbo looked around, following the rest of the crowds down the street, above him he saw a messenger raven heading from where he just came.

The commotion was coming from the side of a post-master's house. There were old leaflets concerning the rising prices of veg, the success' of the prince, the war march returning to Erebor without a single loss of life. But the newest posts were on the bottom, where Bilbo couldn't see. It was freshly pasted, the mucilage was still fresh on the ground where Bilbo tried to avoid the drops. He moved his way to the front but ended up getting pushed around somewhere in the middle. To a taller dwarf he asked what the fuss was all about.

"Aye, lad, the king had done lost his mind. He's created a strict ban on the hunting, mutilation, maiming, torture (by any means), and general harassment of any domestic dragons and their owners. Hah! As if ye'd find yerself one in these mines. Ain't no place 'ere where a dragon can hide." The red haired dwarf sniffed through his wide nostrils, inhaling some of his wild soft mustache. He rubbed his nose where it tickled and kept on, "No, lad, ye couldn't find a more crazy lot than those of Durin's folk. Why the whole lot is crazy. D'you know the prince gon' and fell in love with one of our lot! A miner! Or butcher or baker, they say. Some low life like us! Hey! Where do you think yer' off teh'?"

But Bilbo stopped listening after the news of the mandate and shot out of the crowd, keeping his pack of trade items he made his hurried way back home. 

He couldn't believe it! He'd done it! Oakenshield had actually kept his word! If he ever saw that dwarf again he was going to kiss him full on the mouth. He didn't care who was around to see it or how improper it might be, or how much Dwalin huffed. And all this time he had worried that the officer had been lying to him the whole time. But he wasn't! Oh, Mahal had Bilbo been so wrong.

"Smaug!" Bilbo called from one end of the ally to the back door. It was the quickest way to the sitting room where Smaug laid. "SMAUG!"

Bilbo laughed out his dragon's name, his best friend, his brother while his siblings made their way outside excitedly. They looked worriedly at him, they didn't know!

"He did it! Oakenshield did it! He said he would and he did! Smaug!" Bilbo dropped the items he carried and burst into the house, the red dragon haunched like a scared cat. His siblings cursing at him as he pushed them out of the way to get inside. "He did it! He's kept his promise! There's a ban on killing domestic dragons. They can't even taunt you without punishment!"

"What?" Smaug squeaked out, his voice changing as a dwarfling's would. "Are you sure?"

"YES!" Bilbo cried and hugged the dragon around the middle, not caring for his warmed belly, "You can go outside, you are free! You don't have to hide here anymore!"

"What's all this then?" Vala asked from the kitchen where there was a meat pie waiting for her eldest.

"Mother, Bilbo says Smaug is protected." Mikh said skeptically.

"Aye, and by order of the king. That means there will be punishment if anyone breaks the law! Oh, broken hammers I thought that he wouldn't do it!" Bilbo laughed again and squeezed his best friend, Smaug laughing with him.

Bilbo just didn't have enough words for how excited he was and how much he was appreciative, Mandos' Doom, he should be punished for how much he thought he couldn't count on Oakenshield. The dwarfling wanted to cry for his relief. 

"Did you say Oakenshield?" his mother asked, it was only now that he realized she had been gripping a letter in her hands. "You have a letter from him here. A raven had just left."

She handed over a letter with a dark blue satin ribbon. Bilbo gasped at the expensive wrap. It couldn't have been leather, or a simple cord, no, it had to be a colored satin ribbon. Bilbo felt just like a maiden receiving word from his traveling soldier, satin ribbons, careful runes, thick courier paper, scented oils... wait. Scented oils? 

Sure enough, it was an oil, peppermint. Bilbo was surprised he could still smell it after such a long journey from Erebor. The dwarfling pocketed the ribbon and carefully opened the letter, and there was the spilled oil mark. Bilbo smiled as he imagined his officer sitting at his desk, messy black hair after sword training, or coming back from the deciding meeting of the new law. He would be slightly out of breath, hand shaking from excitement as he lifted his quill between those large, capable hands. The dwarfling blushed at how those hands could do wonders on and off the fields. Their strength must be something, but he would hold the quill lightly, carefully if he were to make the precise marks of runes on these pages. 

Bilbo took his time looking at the letter, wondering at the perfect marks on the pages. Pages! More than one! The blush made it's way to his ears and his sisters (Laz included) made fun of him. 

"My Dearest Bilbo,"

Oh, forge anvils he was going to feint. 

"I hope this letter finds you out of stocks. 

"I firstly would like to express my sincerest apologies if they do, and for the plain fact of the lack of raven's to you. You're Officer had made it to his desk every night wishing to write to you. But I stayed my hand as I would not like to have been able to write to you without positive news of this new law. I pray to Aule you haven't dismissed my intentions, or me, as I'm sure you've thought I was the liar you accused me of. 

"These procedures have taken a lot of my time, and the prince's if that concerns you, as the presenter of such a motion, once approved, must follow it to whatever end. It has constantly been an uphill battle and your prince has made a lot of progress before he was allowed to present his case to the king. I wish not to bore you of these things, but I do hope you find forgiveness for Your Officer. 

"How have you been? A paltry excuse for the opening of a conversation, I am sure. But, after a whole year of not being able to get your visage out of my mind, I find I am severely concerned for your well-being. Have you gotten ill? Have you grown a beard yet? I'm sure you have some witty, barbed comment for it all, and I wish to hear it. Please, what news of you? How is Smaug, the triplets? How have your parents fared? Has your bakery been profitable this past year? I am aware of the pandemic of cotton worms and worry if you've been able to stay warm in the winter with lack of new cloth. Though I suppose wool is a good substitute if any. You must be able to stay warm since you live so near the forges. But I worry none the less. 

"I miss your laugh. The clear ring of it and how it made my heart flutter like a young dwarrow again. Though I'm not that old, if you ask. Upon our meeting I had recently celebrated my seventy-eighth season. You were sixty-seven, I remember, and I count the moments when you are finally of age. I digress. I wished to have spent the last of this page explaining your beauty. Of how your honey curls have pleasantly haunted my dreams. Your sea green eyes, the depths of those shifting colors within them. Did you know you blushed at every word you had? Your cheeks were aflame with it, your ears, pointed and curious, provoked me to tease at them, wonder if they were sensitive. 

"I am a horrible dwarf for writing this. Dwalin is currently judging each rune I mark out and coughing at the lack of discrepancy of my wooing you. He sends his greetings, by and by. And wishes, honestly, that this does find you in health as well. I have never known that dwarrow to ever be so fond of something not sharp. Though, what does that say about your tongue or wit?

"My duties call. I must leave you for now, My Dear Dwarrow. I pray to Mahal and all the Valar for your protection. And may Mandos' Doom find those who try to persecute you. You will find that the law covers every sentiment and concern I could imagine for you and your dragon. 

"Pleasant and Dearest Regards,

"Yours, Present and Future, 

"And Certainly Annoyed By Overlooking Friends,

"Oakenshield, Your Officer"

Hastily, as if an afterthought, came:

"Post Script, should you find a missive or angry letter from a certain warrior, please disregard. Dwalin means well, but he is certainly protective of me."

Bilbo couldn't help but smile, laugh, and blush throughout reading the whole letter. He tried to imagine what it would be like, an officer, a soldier of the King's Army bringing forth concerns about domestic dragon protections. And what evidence, besides meeting Bilbo's dragon, had Oakenshield been able to provide the King? Were there other's in Middle Earth who had been able to raise dragons as you would a dog? Or in Smaug's case, a cat, a very lazy, very mischievous cat who, when he was little, snuck around the house 'pouncing' on the children then darting off, screeching down the hall in retreat. 

The way that Oakenshield had written his own name, 'Your Officer', made Bilbo feel like they were already courting and that he had a claim on Oakenshield. It made him realize that the other dwarrow was going to keep his word and come back to him and court him properly. If that was going to happen, Bilbo had to write back and make sure that the other dwarf would begin writing to him through his parents, as a proper, traditional courting would have been done. 

Bilbo took the letter written to him and gave it to his mother, "I don't need it son. We've already got ours."

She smiled and turned away. "Did you get the calf for-" 

The bells began ringing throughout the halls. It started as a faraway tolling that barely registered, then, as they got closer to residential halls, got louder. There were horns, bellowing deep and guttural, causing an inborn panic and fear to shake the very core of every dwarf... and non-dwarf. This was a sound each person living in mountains feared.

"Orcs." Vala breathed out. Down the stairs came Bombur and his eldest daughter, sweaty beads of fear already dotting faces. 

"Out, now!" Bombur yelled and Vala grabbed a few kitchen knives and gave one to her husband, one to Bilbo and kept one for herself. Bilbo gripped a letter in one hand and a knife in the other. Even with his soft grip and minuscule amounts of training (really, messing around with Gilb and Nazin) he was the most cable of defending his family. And there was another level of fear for that. 

For what could one undersized dwarf do against fearsome orcs?

With Mikhelh and the triplets already outside, the second eldest herded the crying, screaming children and waited for the others to come. Vala and Adnzeth got to the door first, Bilbo and Smaug next, Bombur waiting for his family to get out before him. Vala clutched the back of Adnzeth's dress top so tightly Bilbo could see her bones popping out causing her hands to appear white. Her eyes were wide with fear and a mother's determination. 

Bilbo's heart pounded against his chest painfully, his breath came quick and prickled, his head felt like he was at the top of a peak, with little air to breath, he felt like walls were closing in on him, as if he were caught between two sides of a cliff during a rock slide, the edges closing in on him with no hope of reaching a hand out for safety. And here, in the lowest parts of the residential halls, what use was it to reach the top? The outside, which Bilbo had never seen. What good was it to pretend that they had a chance against orcs. A chance against a swarm of chaotic, bloodthirsty beasts with their shields, and spears, and swords, and whips so cruel that to look upon them would cause one to flee. 

Smaug pushed the eldest son of Bombur with his head, propelling the poor, shaking dwarfling forward stiffly. "Go! Bilbo!"

Numbly he felt his feet take a step, another step and soon, he was running. He was only a few feet behind his mother who pulled her daughter through the threshold when he turned and waited for his best friend and father. Something didn't feel right, something bothered him when Smaug stopped taking steps as well and tried pushing Bombur with his tail. "Smaug. Father the door! Smaug won't fit!"

Panic and clarity, it was a heady mix. Bilbo felt his limbs shaking with the adrenaline. He wedged himself between the posts of the door and pushed his feet against one side, and his back against the other. Bilbo felt a shuddering when his father bodily slammed against the doors' jam, breaking it off, and stepped back again and pushed against the post at Bilbo's feet. Vala let go of her daughter and began pulling, Smaug on his haunches repeatedly slamming his own weight against the wall, trying to get it to break. 

Although dwarves dwelt in mountains with rocks and stone around them. The residential development had been behind on the population of the lower class. They couldn't afford architects to safely create homes for them. Nor were there enough monies from the treasury set aside for stable living. Most dwellings, as is the case with Bombur's family, had to be built with wood after the mining of ore. And though stone was a specialty amongst dwarves, it didn't keep from their superior skills from spreading to wood work. 

The walls were sound, thick and unmovable. The horns that were raising the alarms quit abruptly, Bilbo could hear the screams of the people around them, spilling out into the streets and along the travelers' halls. The echo's resounded louder than the bells themselves after their tandem. But nothing could drown out the warbling call of orcs.

"Father!" Bilbo cried out. 

"Smaug, burn it all!" Bombur gave up, pushed his son out of the way and pulled his wife down the steps and to safety. Bilbo landed on the uneven stone street and could feel something crack in his ankle. He screamed out in pain, only once, more out of surprise, and stood.

Inside his family home, he could hear a bubbling of fire building up in his friends' chest. He'd heard it enough times when Smaug had gotten angry at something or another and he knew that his belly would be glowing with a fire-light. Bright white and yellow. He could imagine his friends' neck elongating, ready to unleash a fire from his mouth bigger than he'd ever allowed himself. 

The glow of fire was seen, and the roar of the dragon heard, before the sizzling and cracking of wood and stone burst forth. And there! There was the red wyrm himself, jumping through flame and burned wood. 

The family didn't have time to mourn their home. The only home that Bilbo had been in, had remembered them living in. All at once, the family of baker's and dragon had turned and ran down the ally, the heat of flame and wrought burning at their backs. Their home was gone. Their possessions lost. And, if they were lucky, they would not have to suffer the loss of their family. And there was comfort in that, if only a little. 

Smaug, unused to running for so long, felt his legs wobble like a new born lamb. His knees buckled as he attempted to make his way behind his family. Bilbo watched him struggle to keep up, wincing at his own pain. He didn't want to look down at his foot. He didn't want to see bones poking out, blood pouring, or the bruising of a sprain. He didn't want to acknowledge what happened to his ankle. Because if he did, he knew the pain would rise it's ugly head and cripple him even more. 

They flowed out of the ally. Running, crying, gripping and clutching. They pulled, pushed, and stumbled with the rest of the dwarves. And at this point. It didn't matter if they were bakers, miners, tinkers and toymakers. They were a people chased. They were a people in danger of dying on the twisted blades of orcs. Bilbo could see a few soldiers make their way through pushing, panicked crowds. They were making their way from where the family just came. Faces grim, set with determination and eyes glowing with fear. 

Was this what Oakenshield felt? Going into battle? Not knowing what would happen to him or his brother's and sisters who fought next to him?

"Dragon!" 

"Dragon!" 

It was a stuttered panic, it rose among and around the baker's family, and consumed the dwarves around them. 

'He's my friend.' 

'He's family.'

Is what Bilbo wanted to say, but he couldn't say a word. He gripped letter and knife in each of his hands and went to stand next to his worrying dragon. Smaug's long neck afforded him to be able to look over the crowds, and the trap-line messaging set into motion. People screamed from orc and dragon now. But they kept moving, all of them, in the same direction. There was no room to push against the red animal, not without falling into chasms deep. 

Bilbo could see the explosive light of forges deep. They glowed brighter and bolder with the rising cry of orcs. Dwarves began panicking, and children crying. Bilbo, squished against Smaug's shoulders, father before him and other dwarves around him, fixed his face with what he hoped was courage. If fear could burrow into hearts at a time like this, then so could courage. Ahead of him the flow of the exodus slowed down, slowed until no one was moving, and no one would dare push. The edges of the traveler's bridge raised over other bridges that webbed through the cliffs. In a thin line, dwarves moved across. 

But even that stopped. 

Standing still, Bilbo could finally feel the pain in his ankle. He winced and pushed the feeling away, protecting his family was more important than his own pain. Standing, Bilbo swayed and lost his footing. It was then he realized... the stone floor shouldn't be slick. Or soft. Or uneven. Bilbo could then feel his toes getting caught in clothing and slipping on belts. 

He sobbed, resolutely not looking down. Smaug doing the same. The other dwarves wouldn't be able to feel this. Not with their thick boots. 

Screams erupted in front of the crowd. Screams built up in terror behind them. And pebbles and rocks began raining down on them. Not looking down, and afraid to look up, Bilbo found himself craning his neck the same as everyone else. A black wave of scuttling creatures came crawling down the side of the uneven walls and columns. 

This is what Oakenshield, Dwalin, and all of the King's Men dealt with. They saw these creatures and met them in battle. Unusually shaped eyes, glowing pupils, slick, grey-green skin mottled and scarred. These were the unholy creatures that they lived in fear of everyday. These were the creatures that lingered in the dark chasms where Oakenshield warned against disrupting. 

The orcs called out. Blades slicing the air as they fell dwarves, dwarves who weren't soldiers. Dwarves who were healers, seamsters, cooks, and miners. Dwarves who weren't raised for battle, taught to war. Dwarves who still tried to fight.

The first wave of orcs from the walls fell down to the floor, pushing the people back. Pushing back against... nothing. Bilbo looked behind him and saw dwarves disappear off the edge. He began crying, knowing this was going to be the end... the end of everything. 

He looked towards his family, crying, screaming, bellowing, howling and fighting, like the rest. Though being pushed back, those who had weapons, of any shape and size, attempted to beat back the orcs. But they were too many. The dwarven wall of protection from the edge was thinning. And Bilbo's feet and legs got antsy. He wanted to run, to move away from the edge like the rest. Baker's son or not, he was still too small to push against the dwarves in front of them to attempt to drive back the orcs. 

Bilbo could hear the panicked breathing of Smaug, his voice whining the same as he would when the fear of discovery from the triplets consumed him... but this was worse. Smaug began voicing a cry. And he could hear the screams of the falling dwarves. 

There were no soldiers... there was no Oakenshield to save him. It was only them. A family of low class citizens armed with steel ladles, pick axes, forging hammers and kitchen knives against the brutality of orcs. Bilbo looked around, hoping to see his family still within the safety of the ledge. For a hall it was no more, only a death's ledge where a jump or tumble would begin the walk into Mandos' hall of the waiting. 

Bilbo couldn't see his family, but one look at Smaug showed that the dragon knew where they were. He could hear his mother bellowing a war cry, he could hear his father growling in defense, his brother, he knew, shepherding their siblings. They were just too far away. And Bilbo and Smaug were too close to the edge. 

One step...

Two step...

Three step...

Fall.

Thats all it took now. 

"Smaug!" Bilbo surprised himself with his scream, "FIRE!"

Dragon looked at dwarf for a hesitating second before Smaug dug into the ground, he was the last on the edge before falling like the rest. Tail outstretched, trying to protect other's too. He outstretched one wing, flapped it to gain strength against the pushing, and used his other to push the others safely away from his belly. Bilbo was still at his shoulder.

The fire drake inhaled, growling, bubbling and silent before angling his neck towards where cliff met floor. When he let out his breath, a liquid line of fire burst forth enveloping the cliff, sticking like syrup on the wall, and drizzled down onto screaming orcs. He let in another breath, released it, another, and released. The bursts of flames were short. But it drove back the orcs. 

There was a cry of retreat, and a cry of victory belonging to orc and dwarf. Dwarrows and dwarrowdams cheered, screamed, hollered and bellowed their cries of victory against the wall of ascending orcs. Bilbo let out his own scream of success. His high pitched wailing matching the fire-voice of his dragon. Hand raised, Bilbo realized that it was his knife hand, not the letter hand, his non dominant hand, that was raised. His victory came from him... not his dwarf half a world away. 

"Dragonscreamer!"

"Dragonscreamer!"

"Dragonscreamer!"

It rose and fell, the chant of victory, the chant... of Bilbo's name. He cheered with the rest, and felt the heart dropping cracking under his feet. Before he fell he pushed other dwarves out of the way, away from him, away from the giving crack of the ledge. To his right, he saw the gentle whip of tail as Smaug did the same, wing extending fully as both non-dwarf and dragon were the only ones to fall.

 

_Two weeks later..._

"Your Highness!" Dwalin ran to the prince's chambers, chasing the figure in front of him before he could disappear around the corner and into his rooms. In the soldiers' grip was a letter from The Lord of Moria. "Thorin!"

Thorin Oakenshield, Son of Thrain, Son of Thror, Prince Under the Mountain, turned, braids bouncing against his chest as he half smiled at his friend before his face fell. "What is it? What's happened to him?"

Dwalin pulled up short to his prince and friend. He was huffing from running all the way from the Western Ravenhill. He regretted now, rushing to find Thorin.

"WHAT'S HAPPENED TO BILBO!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told you you'd hate me.
> 
> *HIDES*
> 
> Dwarven customs here. Dwarves have Inner Names (private and usually never given), Outer Names (like given names, e.g. Dwalin), Descriptor Names (earned; Oakenshield), and Patronymic Names (Son of Bombur or Bombur _ul_ ). 
> 
> We find out Thorin's the prince! 
> 
> Just remember it's a catalyst for a BAMF Bilbo.  
> Fluff and romance to come! Don't worry!


	3. There's Always One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thorin hears of Bilbo's success' via tantalizing letter. A soldier named Gloin recounts the moments of Bilbo's victory. But Thorin is ready to protect his intended, and kill those who would think they had a chance. And Dwalin is pulled into it reluctantly.
> 
> In Moria, Dwalin figures out just how difficult it must have been for Thorin to meet his One... becuase he certainly can't do anyting right for his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MORE TAGS!!! :D 
> 
> I do believe that I've gotten carpel tunnel just from this chapter alone. 
> 
> I hope ya'll love the new relationship. Aaannnndddd, I know I'm fracking up the timeline, history, and ages so wondrously... so, just go with it.
> 
> P.S. Dwarves are far more romantic than anyone gives them credit for.

Thorin feared this. 

The Prince of Erebor had, for this past year, worried about the life of his dwarf in the mines of Moria. Dwalin's brother, Balin, his instructor, had carefully guided him to putting away such thoughts until he could hear from his dwarf. The harboring of a dragon was not a death sentence, but there was punishment for a dwarf to have such a terrible and untrustworthy evil. 

But, in this regards, Thorin Oakenshield knew better. He'd met the dragon, Smaug, if only for a few moments, and judged him to be just as kind as Bilbo (if not more prone to fear than the dwarfling). As to the dragon Smaug, he remembered the golden shine of the red scales. They looked soft, as if a snake had just peeled it's skin. The little beastie had no wings, only those awkward forward limbs with moving, taloned, thumb at the joint. His tail was long, fur ridged it's back from snout to tail. A round, puppy dog-like stomach wobbled with his curious sniffing on Bilbo's cart. It payed him little mind, and he had judged the creature to be good. Just as well as Bilbo. 

Oh, blazing forges, Bilbo. Thorin wanted, even if he had no momentous desire, to hear of the doom of his dwarf.

"What happened-"

"Nay, Thorin, the lad is fine." Dwalin saluted formally, asking for forgiveness. Fist to chest, Dwalin's training tunic stretched across the dwarrows' bulging forearms. "It- is- about the lad. But he's fine. Better than fine, you numpty-dwarf."

Thorin breathed out a minuscule sigh of relief, but still, he had no _actual_ word. Dwalin continued past Thorin, diverting his path to the princes' study instead. Without prompting the tattooed warrior began reading the letter. 

"'Your Royal Highness, Thorin Oakenshield, Son of-' yes we already know who you are. The man's always been a windbag of words. Ah! 'It is with a saddened heart to report the near fall of Moria. As your grandfather, King Under the Mountain, has already been notified, orcs have risen from the deep and through the cracks of the mountain. They had sought to take your grandfather's mines. But I must say, the strength of your people, of your father's people...' Aye, let's get to the good part."

Thorin sorely wanted to throw something at the dwarf's head.

"'I have been given a report, attached here, from a soldier who was at the front lines of the battle.' Moving on to the battle as he boasts about his own sword hand. Ehem, 'It began in the forges, the orcs swarming 'round. They poured from every conceivable crook and pushed back our defenses. The miner's had been called out, they retreated to the exits, but found them blocked from misuse and ill-repair. They continued on up the Traveler's Halls and into the Residential givings, there was a house on fire, and many people's scared. 

"This soldier and a handful of Your Bravest, fought back the orcs as much as we could. We were outnumbered when suddenly, a great screeching as I've never heard rose up above the chaos. Behind me, there was fire. Orcs retreated and instantly I saw it, a dragon. Red in scales, and had I known better, would say the creature was golden in the light from the blazing forges below. 

"The creature was being guarded by a small dwarfling child, his hair was golden, just as his dragons' shone. The child fought with a small knife in hand, the dragon, with his wing's flapping to brace him and other dwarves from falling over the edge, fought ever on. 

"The dragon breathed fire! And drove back the orcs. Up the wall they went, just as I assumed they came. There was a call of the lad's earned name: "Dragonscreamer". I could hear the boy's shouting, matching his drake in pitch as you would a song-voice. And Dragonscreamer he was indeed. But just then, without warning, beast and boy fell, saving everyone around them as they pushed other dwarves away. The ledge gave,"

"How could you say he's fine! Dwalin..." the warrior grabbed his best friend and sat him back down.

"Relax, I've already read it. He is fine, just hear on your dwarf's success. Crazy mithril backed lad.

"He was falling and there was nothing else he could do before he gripped the side of the dragon's neck..." 

 

Bilbo had been relieved, when he saw the orcs retreating back up the steep cliff side. Fire blazed bright before all they saw was more rocks, more cliffs, and an endless chasm below. Bilbo had seen, just before it all went dark, orcs approaching from in front of and behind the group they were clustered with. The dwarfling clutched onto his friend all the more tighter. 

Smaug and he fell, then they were slowing, the dragons wings had unfurled and were trying to balance their fall. Bilbo climbed onto the dragons' back. 

"Hold on Bilbo!" The dragon managed to yell above the screaming wind around Bilbo's ears. They tilted right, they shifted left, then they were gliding away from the cliff and in a tight, near-controlled circle. Bilbo lifted his head enough to realize that he couldn't see a thing in the deep dark. "There's a way out. I can see it!"

"You're flying." Bilbo whispered in astonishment. Then yelled louder, "Your flying! Smaug!"

"We're getting out of here."

"No! We need to help them! There were only a few behind us. Let's get them first then the people can retreat back from the orcs above." Bilbo tried gripping at the base of Smaugs' flapping wings, but his hold didn't work. So he squeezed with his thighs as he would a pony. 

"I meant that we should get out of this darkness. I can _barely_ see."

"Oh, erm, right." Bilbo clutched harder as there was another explosion of one of the nearby forges and Smaug shot straight up, seeing his way better. 

The wind howled, it bit his cheeks with the cold of the deep, the force of the wind tried to dislodge him from Smaug's back. But he gripped on tightly underneath the pinching joint of wing and shoulder. They wavered, but they flew on, until they could see and hear the screeching of the falling. But it wasn't the screams of dwarves. No! It was the screams of orcs. The dwarves were fighting back and Bilbo could hear the bellowing and shouting of his people just above them. 

From the rear-facing soldiers' perspective, they saw a yellow-bellied, red-winged wyrm shoot up from the deeps and dwarfling and dragon screeched as one. Never giving up.

Smaug twisted in the air as if he'd been doing this all his life, Bilbo continuously on top of him, never did Smaug want to unseat his best friend. 

They tightened the circle, swinging around and towards the pressed orc's. Some, a few, retreated back from seeing the dragon, some, more than a few, fell off the edges from the press of soldiers and citizens. Bilbo could feel the bubbling of fire-breath, knife hand forward he let loose a gut deep bellow, and Smaug smote his enemies. 

The thick line of flame licked and coated the panicking orcs. They tried to retreat, but dwarves pressed still, hurling some off the edge and driving weapons into the creatures of the dark. Over the line of retreated orcs Bilbo saw that more were coming up on the wall below. They crawled with their unnatural grace against the terrain and Bilbo kicked against the thick scale of his friend.

"More are coming up." Was all Bilbo said, trying to let Smaug know where he wanted to go with his pressing heels. 

They landed between the dwarves and orcs, and Smaug got on his hind legs and roared as loud as he could and flapped his wings, stirring up the cinders and flame. It licked at the deformed creatures and drove them back even more. Those who tried to come up over the ridge were blown off. Behind them dwarves made their way in against the safety of the walls, those who couldn't fight. They pressed away from the ledge in more than just one voice of fear. 

Bilbo saw the whites of the citizen's eyes, and blaze of determination in those who faught. Courage was what they needed, and with a dragon, they could do it. 

"Smaug..." lined the edge with his sticking flame and none could climb up. Distantly Bilbo could hear the falling and the angry screeching. 

"Dragonscreamer!" A soldier came forth, the press of orcs gone, other soldiers guided the families and fearful into the stone homes for temporary protection. They feared the edge... so did Bilbo. "We could use you and your dragon-"

"Smaug." the boy replied,

"Aye, we could use you both at the front. There are more of their forces there. How did you find your strength?" The soldier, with his red hair, silver beard beads, and battle axes, asked. "Not many could find that warriors fire in the midst of battle."

Bilbo shrugged his shoulders, out of breath as if he were the one flying around with a child on his back, "Oakenshield would have done the same."

"Aye, the prince would have. But ye not even trained, are ye?"

"What? Prince? No, no, no, the officer, Oakenshield. Black hair, blue eyes, twin braids of the temple and chin."

"Aye, silver beads, broad shoulders, deep set of furrowing eyebrows. Looks like he's always cross." The soldier laughed, "Aye, he's the prince. Prince Thorin Oakenshield, carries the maker of his namesake with him at the hip."

Bilbo gasped like a fish, opening and closing his mouth in needed reply. Below him Smaug shook his shoulders, getting Bilbo to snap out of his shock. "The front, you say?"

The dwarfling child looked up and beyond where the crowd had intended to go. There were others fleeing back, some moving forward to help fight. 

"Aye." The soldier turned and guided his way through the crowds. 

That moment of fear and clarity moved in Bilbo again and he realized they couldn't afford the time to find their family. So Dragon and dwarrow took off over the ledge again, pushing back their fears and scanning the crowds. Smaug saw them first, pointing them out with a drag of chin in their direction. 

Bombur and Vala kept their children between them as they witnessed their eldest riding on the back of their kin-dragon. The fear in their eyes, watching their son, too young to even imbibe, flew on into battle. He felt the pinching of his heart when he saw his youngest brother, Laz, reaching out to Smaug, looking for that protection. 

Laz had, in the past years, grown very close to the dragon. And Smaug had a special patience for Laz as well. The boy would come screaming to the dragon when he got in trouble with their parents. The other girls would cuddle with Bilbo. He could see their fear, their love, and their pride on their smudged faces as they flew on. 

They landed on the bridge, there was a tunnel to which Smaug was too big to fly through safely. Bilbo dismounted, with a pained gasp at his swollen ankle. Sprained then, not broken. The dwarfling picked up a sword, it was just a training sword and not even sharp enough, but it had a better reach than his knife. He put the small blade at his belt and the letter within the folds of his coat. 

Bilbo took a breath and trod along next to his friend as they heard the call of battle ahead of them. He gripped the sword in both hands and looked around to the other soldiers, trainee's, his uncle Bifur, and Uncle Bofur, the miner. They marched next to him, to his left, Smaug, growling at the stench of blood, both dwarf and orc. 

"Keep your head lad." Bifu called out. 

"You're father will kill us if you fall." Bofur muddled out, his tongue thick with his northern accent.

"I've fallen once and I'm still here." Bilbo laughed out. The absurdity of this all. Where only moments (hours?) ago he had been reading a barely contained love letter from his officer. Nay, his prince!? Oakenshield was a prince. _The_ prince. Bilbo shook his head, when had his life flipped so completely?

They marched on, the noises of battle getting louder. 

"I don't know how many breath's I have left, Bilbo." Smaug rumbled beside him. "I feel, almost empty, or hollow. And the heat is leaving me, making me cold." 

"Don't push yourself then, friend. Keep your breaths. You have your wings and tail. Use those." The same soldier from earlier spoke. "The name's Gloin, son of Groin."

"Bilbo, son of Bombur. That's Smaug, I raised him from his quartz egg." Bilbo nervously supplied. 

"Never thought I would ever see a dragon." Gloin whispered aloud. 

"Never thought I'd see battle." Bilbo volleyed. He was shaking in his core, but his legs kept moving, his heart kept pumping, and his arms tensed with nerves that snuck their way past his mask of bravery.

Bilbo could feel a gentle grip at his shoulder and turned to see Bifur holding him awkwardly. "Aule's hammer's bless you, may the Valar keep you, and Manwe guide you should your time come."

Bofur said the same to him and passed it on to Bifur, other dwarves were saying it to their kin, their family or their shield-brothers. Bilbo realized that it must be something said before battle. Bilbo turned to Smaug and repeated it, the dragon doing the same, his wing brushing Bilbo's wind wild hair. 

The mouth of the tunnel widened and the soldiers, for that's what they were at the moment, paused and saw the horror before them. The upper levels of the Great Hall were overrun with orcs and cave trolls. Dwarves fought next to men who were obviously here for trade. Bilbo was surprised to see them, he didn't expect them to be here. The high vaulted ceilings concealed the possibility of more orcs rushing down on them. Bilbo had already seen how well they could crawl. 

"Wait." Bilbo said. He nervously caught everyone elses' attention. They had to come up with so ex sort of plan. They had to try to get as many of their enemies as quickly as they could. And Bilbo thought he had something, but with everyone looking at him he lost his ability to speak. 

He wasn't even sure if it would work, he has never been in battle before so he didn't know how things went. At his elbow, he saw his uncle Bifur lean in towards him. "You got an idea, boy?"

Bilbo wasn't sure, but they had to try something. "Yeah I think so. Smaug when I tell you, create the fire in your belly. Everyone else, stomp together, like the song _The Death of Hanalhe_. In this darkness they won't see us, the orcs. They won't know how small of a dragon we have. They'll just see his lit belly."

"Hey!" Smaug squeaked out.

"The lad's right. We need to scare them. If we can get the trolls running then more orcs will follow." Gloin agreed after some quick thinking and sounds of agreement from the others, the red head seemed to be the more experienced soldier by the way everyone looked to him for the answer. "On three lads,"

Gloin counted down, ignoring the fact that there were lass' there too. Their beat was in sync, as is naturally with dwarves. It didn't take long till the echo's of their stomping shook the walls. Smaug began growling as deep and intimidating as he could. They kept stomping, together and louder.

"Now Smaug!" Bilbo had to yell over the tandem. 

It surged from within him, a deeper growl and the bubbling. The scales lit like heated gold coins fresh from the forge. His belly rumbled with the building fire, Smaug's neck elongated and rose above, letting loose a mushroom of smoke, cinders and drops of fire spitting out from his maw. 

Bilbo looked out onto the battle field they once called the Trading Hall. Orcs began running from the tunnel they were in, Trolls fled from their spots. Dwarves and Men stood their ground, ready to defend themselves from another foe. But Bilbo couldn't help but laugh at their success. Some orcs stayed ordering others to as well, but the dwarven soldiers slew them down, taking their chance at a victory. 

Then, just out of the corner of his eye, Bilbo saw a white orc, massive and heaving with muscles, charging after them, swinging a large mace and taking every dwarf down in his path. The dwarfling saw his hand, up until his forearm, was spiked through his elbow and with three deadly prongs where the hand should be. Bilbo felt a fear unlike before and wanted to fall to his knees.

But he could witness how there were dwarves in the orc's path who couldn't see him coming. Suddenly, with all the force of courage he could muster, Bilbo jumped out into the fray, leaving his brethren in the tunnel with his dragon. They then poured out, screaming and hollering with a mighty cry. Smaug came out, one leap, two and was in the air above Bilbo. He was going after the orc as well. He saw the threat and acted upon it just as Bilbo did. 

He had to do something, even if he was too small and too young, he had to do something. He pushed on dwarves almost as big as Dwalin and Oakenshield (No, Thorin, the prince). Kicking and pushing them out of the way until there was the pale orc in front of him. He knew the name of this beast. But he was supposed to be slain, and by the prince no less. Durin's Bane, Azog, The Defiler.

(“I lost my shield during the final battle against the Gundabad orcs. I picked up an oaken branch and used it to protect me.” Oakenshield pulled back his cloak and revealed said branch/shield. Bilbo saw many cuts in the shield and wondered how it could have possibly survived a battle.) How could he not have realized it, then. The Prince had raised a shield, a branch, against this orc, not just a soldier. And the gouges and cuts into the wooden branch, well, Bilbo could see where the prongs had tried to pierce his Prince and drag him down into the darkness of the Ever Sleep. 

Bilbo screamed like his namesake and charged the laughing orc. He couldn't get away with this, he couldn't. 

The dwarfling saw wild flying red hair over his shoulder, heard the bellowing of his uncle Bifur and the gentle song of his uncle Bofur. They surrounded him, and protected him, they followed him into battle as if he were his officer, his prince, their leader. And Bilbo didn't care. All he saw was the orc who tried to take away his love. Yes! His love! The dwarf he intended to marry, to take as his husband should the numpty still want him. He had to prove that he was good enough for a prince. Because up until his discovery of his true identity, Bilbo was chasing an officer, a soldier as he was a baker. Now, he was a soldier, Dragonscreamer and Drake-Rider, he had come from over the ledge and over the ledge he went. He was one who razed his own home, he was Bilbo, the Prince's Dwarf. 

And he would repay everything the Prince had done for him with the death of this orc... or his. 

The mace came down, and Bilbo ducked out of the way, rolled forward and on his rump he pulled his blade and made a wild stab at the orcs' boot, shoving the blade deep past leather and toughened skin. Bilbo heard the orc wail and try to kick at him. But because of his small size, Bilbo was faster and quicker than the orc. He rolled out of the way again and this time, was caught on his feet. He pushed himself up, turned and began trying to slice at the orcs' hind quarters (for that's as high as the little non-dwarf could reach). 

The orc pivoted left and swung his spike at Bilbo, catching his clothes and side. He could feel the run of blood against his side, soaking up into his clothes. But Bilbo couldn't stop there, even if the pain begged for him to stop. He screamed, again in his namesake, and dove forward with his sword first. It was a lucky pierce of flesh, in the groin, and Blibo knew he could never get a chance like that again. So he pulled out the sword and made another jab, just as the mace came swinging down for his head. 

This was it. This was where the little non-dwarf and orc met their ends. Together in battle. It was poetic. Maybe they would sing songs of him in the tavern. Maybe his brother would learn it when he got old enough to drink. Would his siblings celebrate his life? Would Thorin weep for him at his tomb? Would Dwalin miss his 'sharp tongue and wit'? Perhaps not Dwalin, but would he miss him at all? Finally concede to the dwarfling being _enough_ for their prince? Would death be quick and painless? Would he enter Mandos' halls with his head high and with the greetings of a warrior?

Or would the idiot of a wyrm come to block swing and stab?

Smaug grunted at the brutal force of an orc that was as big as him - even with his neck stretched. Wings flapped to prevent the force of the blow from landing on the crumpled Bilbo. With a slicked right hand, he squeezed his side and gasped against the pain. He saw Smaug roar with fire and blaze the enemies face. The beastly white orc choked on the thick fire and flame and fell to his knees. Before Bilbo fell onto his back he heard the bone crunch of a maw finding it's prey. 

Bilbo winced when he realized what his friend had done. 

His vision started to go black along the edges. And he could see a red headed dwarf lean over him. 

"It's alright laddie, rest now, Oin will stitch you up. Rest now, the battle is over. We have won." Gloin whispered to him. 

"... And the lad closed his eyes and rested. He was not mortally wounded. Oin, Master Healer, has repaired his side and tended to more of his wounds. The young lad, Bilbo Bomburul, Dragonscreamer, has the strength and beauty of Mithril, and the ferocity of a Dragon. His heart is pure, his wit quick and tested, his strength blossoming. And I find, Your Highness, that he will have his fair share of suitors by the time he wakes."

Thorin really did want to throw something at Dwalin's head. If only because his friend was saying the words, if not owning them. The clueless dwarf continued.

"'I have heard rumors, started by the Lord's niece, Nazin, your soldier, that you have taken a keen interest in this dwarfling child. Fear not, his parent's and kin have done an excellent job of beating back the suitors. Dwarrow and Dwarrowdam have witnessed his beauty and strength-' Oi! I'm only reading what's written, Thorin. Don't throw that candle at me!" Dwalin dodged another candle and ran off with the letter.

"I suppose then, you don't want to hear the rest." Dwalin grumped. 

"No, he's mine. Don't draw my anger-" Thorin growled.

"Ease your temper, cousin. The rest simply says that he hand't woken up the two days to the writing of this letter. But Oin is able to say, with certainty, that he will wake. Your Bilbo will be fine." Dwalin dodged the last candle and crouched behind the lounging chair. "Doesn't his parent's already know of your interest? They won't allow another to attempt to sway his heart. Though I think the lad will do a fine job at mincing their pride in one breath of his quick, barbed tongue."

There was comfort in that, at least. But he worried even more at the telling of Bilbo's wounds. Of he entering battle before his time. If he could have helped it, Thorin would have kept Bilbo safe from every possible concern. But he knew that he couldn't, and somehow he knew that Bilbo wouldn't ever allow it either. He'd been too prideful to allow Thorin to assist him in carrying the leg of beef that day in the Meadhall. He could hardly believe that Thorin could get away with being so overly protective. 

But Bilbo was so small, under-grown for his age, and without a beard, he seemed all the more younger. Thorin felt like a lech when he flirted with the dwarfling. Even if he was barely out of majority, he felt like an old pervert when talking with Bilbo. But the curly-haired lad was just too irresistible. 

He really had no compunctions to protect and dote on the younger dwarrow. His heart had been burgled by this baker's son, this young warrior, this hero they call "Dragonscreamer". At his young age, Bilbo was already receiving so many titles, even if they were never spoken aloud.

In Gloin's letter, as Dwalin had finished reading it from behind the chair, they had come to call the battle _Azanulbizar_. Where many had fallen to the wrath and ruin of the orcs. But the orcs had suffered many casualties as well. There wasn't a report from Gloin of how many orcs returned to the mountains (whether in Moria or over the mountains). There were great funeral pyres, as there were too many dead to bury in their customs. 

The _burned dead_ and their families received many honours, despite the fact that most were not even soldiers. 

Bilbo had been given a sum for the deeds he'd done and the destruction of his families home. He'd also, according to The Lord of Moria, been commended and is to be awarded a soldiers fee upon his wakening. 

"No, he can't be a soldier. His parent's won't let him. _I_ won't let him. He's too young and too inexperienced." Thorin railed, missing the fact that his sister and brother entered his room again without knocking. 

They were always up to no good when they forgot their manners.

"Well, aye, he is too young, but he'll be trained. And there's always the threat of more orcs so-" it was the wrong thing to say to an overprotective Thorin.

" _More orcs!_ No! I won't have it! Send out the fifth and seventeenth battalion. Have them march to assist Moria in its defense. There should be no excuse for allowing dwarflings to hold a sword before his time." Thorin thought some more. "And the loss of so many lives. Moria will be in ruin for the coming winter months."

Thorin marched out of his study, Dwalin and siblings silently following him (his siblings went unnoticed and mocked his stride). 

"Have Balin go with you to Moria and check on needed supplies." Thorin's footman finally appeared from out of the shadows. "Send a letter ahead of him asking for any supplies we can afford to assist with. Moria should not fall. Send a letter to Bombur and Vala and ask if there's anything they need of the crown. We owe them that much at least for asking for services of their son. Send monies from my personal account with Balin as well, enough to buy them a new house, clothes for the children, supplies for their meals, and enough cows to feed a dragon. Smaug will be hungry afterwards and their herds will be reserved for the people."

"Who's Smaug?" a young voice asked behind him. The princess, Dis, was in her prettiest blue and silver dresses, but underneath those, he saw the muddy boots borrowed from their brother, Frerin. Who he only now saw with mussed braids from Dis' practicing fingers. They weren't that young, Dis; 65 and Frerin; 74, but they played off as if they were decades younger. Dis would usually find any reason to escape her 'princess lessons' and join Frerin out in the training fields. Frerin would coddle their younger sister and let her do whatever she wanted. Which usually led to Frerin getting into trouble. 

Thorin tried to be there as much as he could, their parents were usually too busy with their duty to celebrate in the 'little' things the young ones did. They were, all of them, still young at heart but Thorin had to buckle down and take up his duties as prince. This started ever since coming back practically smiling at every turn. Dwalin had grown tired of his friends' heartstruck demeanor and poured into his training Frerin. 

"I already told you, Dis, Smaug is Bilbo's dragon." Thorin kept marching, wondering if he'd miss anything else that Moria would need. 

"Oohhh... And Bilbo is your husband?" Dis said, trying to get a rise out of him.

"He _will_ be my husband. When he reaches majority. We'll wed." Thorin said resolutely and blushed. His siblings snickered. 

"I wouldn't want to marry a grumpy ol' dwarf so young!" Dis continued.

"C'mon, Dis, I'm sure Bilbo's an excellent dwarf." Frerin practically whined. It was known that Frerin was the weak-wristed flamboyant prince of Erebor. It embarrassed most of the family, that Dis was more dwarrow than Frerin. But Thorin couldn't express his love for his brother enough. He supported Frerin when he decided he wanted to be a gem cutter rather than a warrior. As it was, he was forced to learn at least one weapon. And never before had Durin's Sons seen a more capable archer. "Isn't he the one grandfather is talking about?"

"I wouldn't know what grandfather is saying about Bilbo. But he is the one with the dragon." Thorin dismissed his footman and allowed him to get to work. Thorin wasn't quite sure where he was going yet, but he knew that he had to move. He was still strung up with worried energy for his dwarf. Bilbo's kind eyes, shifting between green and blue depending on how angry he seemed. His dark, golden hair that had been so soft to touch. The lad's copper bead blending beautifully- Copper... Thorin wanted to send his first gift to Bilbo with Balin and Dwalin.

Thorin took a sharp right, Dwalin falling inline seamlessly, his siblings tripping over their feet trying to follow.

"Dwalin. I've finished his beads, if you could give them to him-"

"Me?" Dwalin glared and growled. 

"Yes. I don't trust anyone else to be able to protect him. Train him. I need you to do this, cousin. Please. I can't leave here, but I'm asking if you could do it in my stead." Thorin stopped and gripped Dwalin's broad shoulders. The warrior dwarf stiffened underneath his hold and he could feel the youngest son of Fundin want to fight. After a few moments, Dwalin sagged in a voiceless assent to the request. 

"Aye, lad, I'll do this for ye." Dwalin looked like he wanted to say something else, but he forgot it the instant Thorin smiled and brightened. His posture was straighter and he seemed to glow. "Ye maiden-minded fool."

\---

"To protect me?" Bilbo practically screamed at Dwalin. 

It had taken almost a whole month and a half, the rest of summer, for Dwalin, Balin and the two battalions to get to Moria. 

When they had arrived, most things were not in so much disrepair to worry, but the soldier, Gloin's, report of the lack of proper escapes turned out to be true. Cutting their miners' forces in half, they brought in the architects and began securing a better escape route for the lower level citizens. 

There had been two small uprisings from orcs over the summer before the Ereborean forces showed up. Dragon and Dragonscreamer were quick to stamp out the fires of fear. The orcs dwindled until there was no more. There were indications to show that those orcs were cut off from escape, as they were malnourished and in weak numbers. 

Balin had set ahead with the deposits' of Bilbo's grants from the crown and payment's to their loans from The Lord. 

Dwalin was surprised to hear that it was their house that had burned, he remembered the relatively small house the last time they had visited. He'd followed Thorin down the streets as the prince stalked the dwarfling. It was later explained by one of Bilbo's triplet siblings (triplets!) that Smaug had to do it to get out of the house.

There were still many other things to do before Dwalin had made his appearance to Bilbo's family home, under stone and slab construction this time, as they could afford it. But he stood now, in front of the considerably intimidating dwarfling, his barbed tongue ready to lash out at Dwalin and curb Balin's laughing (and not ANY one could do that to both). The lad was still without reservations or repercussion, but it suited him well. And Dwalin was never so proud to know the dwarfling could handle himself. The suitors were coming in numbers that would set Thorin ablaze should he be made aware of them, and he whipped them about with his words and tongue.

"To protect me!?" Bilbo repeated as Dwalin said nothing.

"That is, Thorin thought-"

"Oh! It's not His Highness? Or not even My Officer? Tell me you mangled tardy-gaited nut-hook. When was he going to tell me that he was the prince?" Bilbo advanced on Dwalin, pushing the dwarf back. He wasn't afraid of Bilbo, no he wasn't, he just had an understandably respectable opinion on certain undersized dwarves who rode on dragons. 

"Well, er- that's the thing he-"

"You'd better get it out straight, you cockered rude-growing wagtail." Bilbo pointed a sharp finger into Dwalin's meaty chest. Not fearing for his own safety at all. Dwalin would have to fix that right away. "I have half a mind to kick you out of this apartment now, if it weren't for the fact that Oin is here and I'm not supposed to be even be walking. Let alone kicking such a boil-brained bugbear out of a room that's not even mine. And what are you laughing at you venomed urchin-snouted minnow. I've heard your words and saw to it that your burden had been appropriated to the right hands. And should you have been there next to your brother back then, Son of Fundin, you'd be getting the same wrath as he."

Balin stood in a corner, where Bilbo's parents sat at a table behind the dark-grey haired merchant looking dwarrow. Vala was green with Bilbo's language and Bombur shook his head in exasperation. 

"And you say he talked like this to the prince, too?" Bombur asked, trying not to be too cross with his son.

"Aye, got Thorin all twisted up with his words." Dwalin stuck up his meaty hands to call off Bilbo's wrath. "These are the prince's orders and I have nothing to do with it. Though I agree that-"

"That what? I'm too small to fight? Or that I'm not dwarrow enough to be Oakenshield- Aye, Thorin's intended? Or perhaps you think too little of me to-"

"Nay, none of that! Thorin wanted me to train ye how to fight. Ye don' have the teachers here that are as skilled as me. I'm the best warrior His Highness has (ask my brother), and Thorin wants to know his future, beautiful-"

"Don't patronize me you roguish earth-vexing flax-wench."

"He doesn't want his future husband to fall." Dwalin finally was able to push out before being interrupted again. 

Bilbo stood, down to his small clothes above his breeches, as Oin had just finished taking out his stitches and applied a healing cream. The dwarfling played with the corner of his bottom lip, glaring intimidatingly up at the black-haired warrior. The young dwarrow huffed before crossing his arms, wincing at the tenderness in his side.

"Fine." Bilbo marched back to the bench with his tunics. "That'll do. Thank you Dwalin."

"Is he always like this?" Dwalin asked, pointing at their son.

Vala threw her hands up in exasperation and Bombur kept shaking his head. 

"Just be happy you don't have enough backbone to actually fight him." Bombur stood up with his wife getting back to the rising breads in their tins. "If you'd actually had words _against_ him, he'd completely render you useless."

Dwalin looked at Bilbo then his parents, then Bilbo again. "Thorin's going to have to gird his loins whenever he fights with you."

"By what way do you mean?" Bilbo asked sweetly.

"I mean that, he's very vocal and stubborn. He always get's his way."

"He won't with me. I'm not some namby-pamby who needs taking care of at every turn. In fact, if the people didn't need it so much, I would have returned every coin you came with, Balin. I've lived in poverty before and I'll live it now to see our people survive." Bilbo turned to put his coat on, completely missing Dwalin and Balin's shared look of awe. 

Here was a dwarf who was ready to lead and serve. They'd heard the soldiers' reports of the battle. How Bilbo charged the ranks without his own care of safety. And only to witness, not but a few days ago, how Bilbo literally turned around and handed out the gold he'd earned from The Lord and the Crown and given it to families that needed it.

"Excuse me," Dwalin and Balin turned behind them to see a mousey little dwarfling quite younger than Bilbo. Dwalin's mouth went dry. "I've been sent here to teach Dragonscreamer how to read and write Westron."

The young red haired lad was quiet, and very small. He had knitted gloves, scarf, and clothing that appeared to be made by the dwarfling himself.

Dwalin found himself, for the first time in his life, unable to speak.

"OH! Master Ori!" Bilbo clapped his hands pleasantly. Dwalin could feel the pinpricks of Bilbo's sharp eyes piercing his back. "Thank you so much for coming here. I hope you haven't missed dinner on my account. My mother was just starting our evening meal. That's Vala, Bombur, Mikhelh, Adnzeth, and one of those three are Laz, Biuri, and Doka. This is Balin and have you met my dearest friend Dwalin? He's an Ereborean warrior who's taken time out of his busy schedule to help protect Moria. Isn't that wonderful? Why we were just discussing on the importance of spreading my newly found wealth with those who need it most (it was his plan really, I honestly had no idea what to do with it all in the first place). Master Dwalin, This is Ori, a young apprentice scribe who happens to be the best at Westron language."

Dwalin had a strange feeling, a knowing, that life with this young dwarrow was going to be the pits. Bilbo had a sharp eye as well as tongue and mind and Dwalin couldn't get out of there fast enough. 

Balin looked at his younger brother quizzically as he tried to squeeze by the little red head. The warrior gave the young scribe a wide birth and kept on out of the small apartments, walking backwards while staring obviously at the young instructor. He almost tripped over one of the triplets and swore quietly. 

"Are you alright, Master Dwalin?" The little scribe called out. Dwalin turned full round, facing the young dwarrow again and stuttered out nonsensical syllables that vaguely resembled khuzdul. _Blazing Forges, is this how Thorin felt with Bilbo?_

"Yes, Master Dwalin," Bilbo called out, tying his cheap leather belt around his waist, laughing at the warrior. "We're having dinner soon. Balin and Ori are staying, why don't you."

"I-uh, that is, azke, duri-er," more nonsense. What is wrong with Dwalin? 

Ori looked into the apartment, listening to someone speaking, "Really? Master Dwalin, you can speak fluent Westron? _**Perhaps, we can sit and have a talk together. I would appreciate the practice, considering there's hardly anyone here who can speak so well.**_ " 

Dwalin stuttered, " _ **I- well, I would like to, but. I-.**_ "

The warrior tripped on his feet and fell on his rump, he got up quickly uttered out a Westron 'Good Night, M-Master Ori' and practically ran down the street away from the apartment. Behind him he could hear poor Ori stuttering, wondering what was wrong with him.

_No, Ori, it's me. You beautiful dwarf... it's not you. I- I._

Dwalin could feel himself blushing so bad that he could feel the heat of it against his raised hand. He hung his head and wondered how Thorin had done it. 

_One year, four months, and too much flirting earlier...._

Dwalin was too excited to finally get some new warrior tattoos. The marking's burned around where they were fresh and raw, but he reveled in them. They were a testament to how talented he was on the field. A sage old 'You see these? You should see the other dwarf.' Yes, he was proud of his new markings, but he was prouder still on getting the prince out of his champers. The warrior had practically begged Thorin to come out tonight. All but dragging their prince out to celebrate a win, no matter how many dwarves the prince was mourning over. A victory was a victory, and the loss of good men could be best remembered by drinking their favorite meads, ales, and wines, recalling the good times they've had.

"I could have celebrated on my own, Dwalin. I didn't need anyone cajoling me out here." Thorin grumped. Dwalin quite believed that he was incapable of having a good time. 'Emotionally constipated' as Frerin had once said of his brother. 

Truer words have never been spoken. Thorin had been, by all accounts, a grumpy old man just past majority. He took things too seriously and never had enough time for himself to just... enjoy the moment. 

Dwalin expected he'd change his perspective soon. 

"Well, ye can' celebrate by yourself, Your Highness, ye have to do it with others!" Dwalin swept his arm about, mead sloshing over the rim of his tankard. "Ye have tah be with other's. Look, cousin, look at your shield-mates, your soldiers, your brothers. They are never so happy to have been led by you. We survived, we'd conquered Durin's Bane and we've done it with minimal casualties. We can letter our family and tell them we breath tonight in this world."

Dwalin was never usually so eloquent with his words, the warrior preferred to mumble and curse and spit at others before giving words of encouragement. But Dwalin had a soft spot for his royal cousin. They were shield-brothers, mates, and never had they been closer since birth.

"I can't just accept that some will not be able to send positive words to their families tonight." Thorin took the last dregs' of his mead, bits of mash floating on the bottom, and winced at the bitter taste. He preferred wine to mead, but it was one of his soldiers' favorites. This was a meadhall the dwarf had met his wife. So this was where they celebrated tonight.

"Ach, well, they have hope in knowing their prince is safe because of their husband's and wives' efforts. They can have pride in knowing they protected you and conquered for king and mountain." Dwalin chased the floaters down and smacked his lips lewdly. "Ye know, I never did tell you about this one dwarf, and he was a biggun too, his hand could fit around me throat twice if he wanted ter. He had been sayin' somethin' to the effects of 'bastard child' when I finally says with my fist- Thorin, my fist-"

"Mahal who is that?" Thorin had dropped his tankard and Dwalin followed his line of sight to a squirrelly little dwarf picking at his nails. His braids weren't as kept and oiled as theirs. In fact, Dwalin was sure that his one knuckle duster's price doubled the entirety of what the lad had on him. 

He had curly, un-dwarvish hair, his honey brown curls were swept gracefully into a large braid that flowed like a waterfall over his shoulder, a shorter, thinner braid adorned his temple on the opposite side. Dwalin had to admit that he was beautiful, if exotically so. But the whole air of Thorin had changed, it had shifted as mountains would during the creation of the earth that dwarves around them took notice. Dwalin could practically hear a snap coming into place, the gears grinding to a halt and amping up to some unprecedented speeds.

Instantly, Thorin was in motion, "I have to speak with him."

Dwalin sighed and followed his cousin, thinking that this was going to be a short show he ordered two more meads and caught up with the now blushing and talking dwarrows.

“I can be where I want when I’m not indulging in libations. Besides, what I do here is none of your business, soldier, as I have my own to conduct.”

"What did you say?" And it was all down hill from there. Dwalin would remember this night when he met that impudent little dwarfling who had no idea who he was talking too. Even the owner had choked on his words at the little one's unguarded mouth.

The night went on and Dwalin found himself following Thorin through a late night crowd, young dwarf before them, trailing behind him a pony and cart. 

"I'm telling you Thorin, don't do this. You have no idea who he is or what his intentions may be. He could be trouble for you."

"He already is trouble for me Dwalin." Thorin didn't take his eyes off the dwarfling, who took his final turn down an ally in the Residential givings. This part of the city was carved into the rock, hanging cliffs above them towered higher than the Trading Hall's roofs. Thorin had been surprised to see such craft in such a poor part of the city. Dwalin, too, had been impressed, then wanted to walk away to find another tavern. "I can't stay away from him. Watch me, please, I don't think I would be able to stop myself should he be welcoming."

"Why don't you bed the lad and we can-"

"No!" Thorin hissed out, blue eyes finally looking into Dwalin's own, "He's different, he's precious, and beautiful and everything I want to protect and everything I need."

"Aye," Dwalin heaved a breath. He'd never seen Thorin so twisted up over anyone. "I won't keep a watch out, you should learn to guard from yourself. This is his parents' house, they won't be far, and he's too young to bed any how."

What felt like hours later Thorin came striding out, looking positively determined and Dwalin groaned. Neither was going to be getting any sleep tonight.

"Have you ever heard of wild dragons being tame?"

_Present day, Dwalin's room, hours after leaving Ori behind..._

He hadn't been sure how Thorin had done it. Discussing it with the dwarf afterwards, he'd been a ball of nerves, but somehow, he knew that he had to speak with Bilbo in that instant, or loose his chance forever. It was that 'perfect moment' that his parents had often spoke of that, hopefully, led to a life of happiness with your One. Perhaps that 'moment' was different now, with he and Ori... no, not Ori. 

The boy was sweet, like candy, pleasant and left you craving for more. And Dwalin had a vicious sweet tooth. Ori was.. he was... damn, he'd never been the waxing poet Thorin had been good at pretending to be. But Ori spurred him to want to write songs about him, to write literature about his fiery hair, how it brought attention to his eyes, the jewels set in precious... oh bollucks, he was crap at this. And Ori was a scribe, a SCRIBE! There was nothing Dwalin could say that could amount up to that precious, beautiful, boy. 

Suddenly, Dwalin understood now, how Thorin could be so protective of Bilbo. Dwalin wanted to steal away the mousey boy and keep him to himself, away from lecherous eyes and wandering hands. 

And that was settled. He couldn't leave the poor boy alone for too long. He needed to get to him, now. And if he couldn't get to him, he would loose him forever. 

The air burned in his lungs, his veins felt like they were on fire, his head had never been so clear, his focus never so tight. He needed Ori like he needed air. And nothing was going to stop him from taking him in his arms and keeping him there, protected, loved, and cared for. 

Even if he wasn't of majority.

Dwalin came bursting into Bombur's home again (like he did earlier today, demanding that Bilbo let him in. 'No! You were in league with that liar and no-good accounting dwarf, Thorin Oakenshield.'). He spotted little Ori, sniffling into some handkerchief that Bilbo had no doubt provided. 

He rushed to him, took his small hands in his large bear-paws and knelt in front of that beautiful dwarfling.

"I am Dwalin, Son of Fundin, soldier to His Highness Thorin Oakenshield. I would be honored, Ori, Young Scribe, to wait for your majority and your hand." Ori looked surprised, he gasped, a slight lisp that Dwalin wanted to kiss and taste at. The lad looked at him then looked behind him. He stuttered,

"M-m-m-y b-b-brothers-" 

"Dori," A mithiril haired dwarf flexed his generous muscle and growled prettily,

"Nori," a tri-peaked thief if Dwalin's ever seen one, spoke threateningly,

"We hear you broke his heart. I hope, dear soldier, you've said your Battle Customaries before coming here." Dwalin heard the cracking of knuckles and winced. 

There's always one dwarf in the world that made you do stupid things for love. Thorin had found his (even if he didn't look much like a dwarf, what with his pointed ears and barefeet), and now, Dwalin found his. And that perfect moment that had propelled him to running two levels to Bilbo's apartment had led him to this....

Dori and Nori, brother's and guardian's of his precious Ori.


	4. Kisses of Wild Lilac

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dwalin begins training Bilbo, but the gruff soldier angers Bilbo and the dwarfling runs off. Smaug takes him for a fly and Bilbo receives a letter from Thorin. But the dreams that come after are most unpleasant.

     The trek to the training grounds were slow and tedious, Bilbo found himself wanting to hum a song to alleviate his boredom, but Dwalin didn’t seem to be in the mood. Last night had been interesting and a learning experience for the older dwarf, that, Bilbo was sure of. The younger dwarf had busied himself in the kitchen while the others were going about their business with Dwalin. It wasn’t that he was being cowardly, oh no, he was simply not attempting to get in the middle of someone else’s business. But when the three adults had abruptly left Bilbo assumed that the Mohawk Dwarf was going to get the beating of his life.

     But here he was, the next day, and not a scratch on him. Bilbo didn’t believe that it was Dwalins’ negotiation skills that saved the man. But his knuckles weren’t even bruised. “I don’t see how you did it,”

     Dwalin was interrupted from his low cursing at the construction crew in front of them and turned towards the young non-dwarf. “Hm?” Dwalin grunted.

     “How did you get out of a beating? Dori had looked like he was willing to skin you, and Nori looked as if he were willing to go back to jail because of you. But here you are, without a scratch or even a hair out of place from last night.” Bilbo was exasperated. Were all soldiers like this? Able to get out of any sort of predicament because he was sure that was a skill a soldier was either born with or had been taught because his friends had always been let off by the skin of their teeth while Bilbo had gotten the blame. Dwalin looked to be the expert in avoiding trouble too. “How is it that you got out of it and what of Ori?”

     Dwalin had been looking at the curly haired dwarf for the entirety of his tirade, but as soon as the little one was done he turned to look ahead of them again. “They’re taking too long.”

     Bilbo sighed and kicked a pebble with his bare foot (he couldn’t stand wearing boots today). Dwalin was proving to be the same dwarf that he’d met months ago in the pub. Surly, dour and downright infuriating. Dwalin was the type of dwarf to do what he wants just as long as it’s not illegal or out of his realm of responsibilities as a soldier. Bilbo was pretty sure that he wasn’t going to be able to get out of most of his training because of Dwalin’s rigidity. But watching as the soldier downright glared at the construction crew was entertaining enough for Bilbo. At least he wasn’t the only one not enjoying the stall.

     The construction crew had an accident late last night, no one was seriously injured so the remaining crew made haste in clearing up the path and unclog the traffic of people as quickly as they could. This was going to be a new escape tunnel (by order of the King) to ensure the safety of all of the citizens of Moria. Bilbo was ever so thankful that where he had failed Thorin was able to succeed. Bilbo thought of his almost-betrothed.

     Though his parent’s hadn’t completely agreed to the marriage yet, Bilbo was looking forward to the day he could call Thorin his One. Bilbo didn’t care about the type of fame would come with his status, what was he to do with fame? Or of the riches that he was told he would gain? Bilbo didn’t want for any of it; rather, he would be most happy with his books and his One – perhaps, strictly in that order. Bilbo smiled at his own joke and Dwalin gave him a look that thought that he was a little barmy.

     “When are ye about done? We’ve got work ter do.” Dwalin’s thick Ereborian accent was as heavy as his battle hammers he carried on his back. One of the workers flailed under the weight of Dwalin’s glare and flinched at his words. “Don’t ye know…”

     “Excuse me, Sire, but we won’t be able to get through this until tonight. It’s still a might bit dangerous.” This particular worker gave Bilbo a wink and was about to continue explaining the intricacies of safety in the work place when Dwalin all but shoved the worker to the side.

     “Don’ you know that this is the Prince’s betrothed? How dare ye be so forward with him.” Dwalin all but growled and no amount of shoving by Bilbo would budge him. “Apologize now.”

     “Dwalin! Stop it,” Bilbo tried to pry the burly dwarf off of the smaller one, the worker’s floppy hat almost dislodged from his head.

     “Then you accept his advances? How dare you-“ There was a smack that stopped even the workers completely, for they had begun to watch the confrontation between Dwalin and their guild brother.

     Dwalin’s head hadn’t moved, but for all the force that Bilbo had put behind the slap he wasn’t that surprised, Dwalin was always going to be stronger than him. “He’s my father’s brother! You great, beslubbering unchin-snouted joithead! Now unhand him and apologize yourself.”

     “Wh-who you callin’ a joithead?” Dwalin did release Bofur but not before turning back to the miner turned constructor and leveling a glare to him. “How was I supposed to know he was a relation?”

     “Perhaps, if it’s not too difficult for you, you odiferous moldwarp, a simple question or inquiry would have sufficed.” Bilbo straightened his thick tunics and took a few steps back. Bofur was straightening his hat out and trying in vain to not laugh at his nephews’ cursing.

     “If yer ma’ could hear you now, lad,” Bofur gave his lopsided grin and patted down his coats. “Name’s Bofur,” Bilbo’s uncle extended his hand to Dwalin. “And if yer worried about the lad’s integrity, I’d pay more attention to the older lads. Oh, they were talking up a storm, clucking like chickens, fightin’ over who was going to ask my brother for Bilbo’s hand first. They seem to think he’s got a thing for those with grey hair. I don’t know what’s more ridiculous to say the least. Though, if my nephew has something for the older dwarrow, I suppose it’d make sense, seeing as he’s landed himself with a dwarf almost fifty years his senior, eh?”

     Bilbo had turned red with embarrassment and clapped a hand over his face in an attempt to hide. Thorin was not that much older than himself. Twenty, thirty years maybe. And who would be foolish enough to believe in that kerfuffle? Bilbo was sure that Bofur was going to get an earful now from the soldier. But what happened next surprised him.

     “The silver-haired, eh?” Dwalin looked as if he were considering some great mystery.

     “Oh, aye.” Bofur said in all seriousness. “They say tha’ my nephew had liked those types before. And when his Highness came around, they say he was instantly taken by his silvery locks. But tha’ can’ be true. His Highness is still young yet.”

     Bilbo watched Dwalin intently, hoping, praying to all the Illuvitar that the soldier wouldn’t believe his uncle. But the black-haired soldier only rubbed at his beard and considered the truth behind Bofur’s words. “Of what I know of your nephew, I know he won’t take to other’s while his heart is with my cousin,” _C-cousin? They’re related?_ Bilbo found himself sputtering. “But it is troubling that other’s seem to think that he’d take to them.”

     “Oh, aye, they think that the more silver they are, the better the chances they have! Some have even taken to dyeing their hair as you would wool. It’s a terrible sight.” Bofur had looked so intent and serious that Bilbo almost believed his uncle.

     “The Prince does have some silver,” Dwalin was still thoughtful,

     “Wh-what?” Bilbo said aloud.

     “Aye, early grey’s, his younger brother’s the same. Hah, Frerin will never get a young wife.” Dwalin turned to Bofur and clapped a meaty hand on his shoulder, “I thank ye’ fer the warning. I don’t believe Bilbo lacks integrity, but this stewing nightmare should be handled swiftly.”

     “Oh, I agree. Completely. Poor Bilbo, he’s entirely oblivious to their advances. Thank the Maker, elsewise… well, I’d hate to gain the wrath of a jealous prince.”

       “Aye, shoulda’ seen Thorin stomp around the palace halls, grumping about thinking of those who’d move in on his l-love.” Bilbo didn’t miss how Dwalin had hesitated on the last word. Was the soldier so uncomfortable with the thought of love? Or was it Thorin’s (his cousin’s) love that disturbed him. Either way, it was notable how the rock-headed soldier faltered at something so natural. “I thank ye’ again,”

     “It’s my pleasure. I keep a look out for my nephews and nieces as much as I can. Though I try to steer clear of the triplets,” All three men shuddered involuntarily. Bofur turned to Bilbo suddenly, still weighed down by Dwalin’s hand. “Bilbo, lad, how’re you? What’re you doing out ‘ere? You know this area is under construction.” Uncle Bofur smiled kindly to his nephew.

     “You knew?” Dwalin sputtered, turning his attention to the small male. He didn’t even bother looking the least bit sheepish under the soldiers’ glare.

     Bilbo threw his hands up, “Of course I knew. Uncle Bofur told us last night that this area was busy.” When Dwalin looked like he was going to attack Bilbo he shrunk back but didn’t stop talking, “Besides, you only asked for the shortest route. And this is the shortest route. It ain’t my fault that you took off before I could tell you they were busy over here. And you looked like you wouldn’t listen to me either way, so I let you march off at your own leisure as punishment.” Bilbo sniffed daintily, “Serves you right.”

     When Dwalin dragged Bilbo into the other direction to find a better road to the training fields Bofur was still laughing. As retaliation, Dwalin had set a quick and brutal pace for Bilbo to try and follow. And thanks to Bilbo being able to lift hefty bags of flour his strength was good. It was his agility, sword handling, endurance, and strategies that were severely lacking. And Dwalin found himself enjoying Bilbo’s punishment a little too much.

     “Thorin will thank me for training you this way.” Dwalin said as he watched the non-dwarf struggle to climb a wall. It was the last thing for the lad to do today so Bilbo was shaking and cramping and generally as pissy as a cat.

     “Can’t imagine how,” A shaky but wrathful voice bounced off the wall, Bilbo was turning out to really hate this dwarf.

     “Well, for one, our training took place in the caverns and the abandoned mines. Thorin and I would climb rock walls all day. Neither of us have a lick of stone sense, so it was that much difficult. But seeing as how you’re already taking a shine to climbing, he’ll be happy to know you’re already this good.” Dwalin said from down below. Bilbo wanted to shake his head, but his hair had come loose during grappling and he hadn’t been given enough time to fix it. _Yer not goin’ ter have time to fix yer hair like a pretty little lass. During a battle, you’ll learn to keep yer braids tight or grease it like mine._ Bilbo had to admit it was pretty useful having your hair greased and out of your way.

     A rock gave way under Bilbo’s feet, and from twenty three feet up, he really didn’t want to fall. Dwalin had come right up underneath Bilbo and was looking like he was ready to catch the lad. A few of the other soldiers (who’d teased Bilbo good naturedly and gave him pointers during his sparring) looked on – their Dragonscreamer may be in trouble. But Bilbo, silent, scared and unwilling to show it, gripped his hand tighter and clutched with his other toes. He saw a crack in the rocks, just big enough for his hand, and quickly shoved his right into it and made a tight fist. He’d seen the way another soldier had done it, on her climb down, to alleviate the stress in her hands. Already his knuckles and exposed palm was complaining, but he’d have to deal with it.

     It was a good thing he had reached for that crack in the rock because he’d lost his footing again and now dangled precariously with nothing but a fist in the rock. Dwalin shouted up at Bilbo, giving him direction on where to place his hand and feet, but through his fear, he could barely understand a word. Bilbo scrambled for another ledge and forced himself to grip it tight, despite his hand wanting to cramp. A few of the soldiers began scaling the rock face to help.

     “No! He’s got it.” Bilbo heard Dwalin yell at the others. “Let him do it.”

     Bilbo didn’t understand how Dwalin could leave him alone like that. Had he been that bad at learning how to fight? Was he that annoying to Dwalin? Surely not, but Bilbo couldn’t help but think of how he had failed Dwalin enough to have the other dwarf make that kind of decision. He’s not used to these kinds of things, confound it all! Sure he’d climbed rocks with the other dwarflings when he was young, but he wasn’t at all that great at it. Alright, sure he was better than the other’s but that was because they were only boulders they hop around on. It wasn’t a rock wall this intimidating.

     There was a short debate below on whether or not someone would climb up to assist the Dragonscreamer, or to obey their commander’s orders. The commander won out, obviously, but that still left Bilbo weak and scared on a rock wall. How dare that dwarf. How dare he leave Bilbo up there to dangle for his life. Forget the wrath of a prince, Dwalin would have to contend to his mother and father. They’d be furious with Dwalin for allowing their son to be hurt… or killed, in Bilbo’s case.

     “What’s wrong, Bilbo?” Dwalin asked, taunting. “I didn’t know that this was all that the Dragonscreamer had in him. Perhaps it really was all of your dragon’s strength that won the battle.” Bilbo knew what he was doing, and it was working. Bilbo couldn’t ever be good enough for Thorin, a prince, if this was all that he was capable of.

     It was up to a consort, especially a male, to guide the kingdom while his king was otherwise occupied. It would have been up to Bilbo to lead divisions of armies after his king, his husband, to protect and safeguard the kingdom. It would have been up to a competent consort to do all these things. But Bilbo couldn’t even climb a silly wall. How was Bilbo going to be good enough for such a great prince who’s already gotten a namesake for _himself_. Oakenshield, he’d used the branch to defend himself and drive off the enemy. And Bilbo, well, he hadn’t done anything. It really was all Smaug, in the end. Smaug had used his strength and fire to defeat the orcs. It wasn’t Bilbo at all. And he was really just pathetic.

     But being pathetic wouldn’t help get him down and off of this cliff. He had to do it. Smaug wasn’t here and no one down below would help. It was all up to him. Blast that Dwalin, though.

     Bilbo was eventually, after taking a little cry, able to find his way down. When his bare feet touched the smooth rock floor he turned on the other dwarf and wanted to rail on him.

     “There ye are. Not so diff-“ Dwalin began to say. But Bilbo fell to his knees and swept his foot out, like Dwalin had taught him, and kicked Dwalin’s feet from under him. It hurt Bilbo’s shins, and he wanted to cry again, but he couldn’t let Dwalin have that satisfaction. The soldiers around the two bickering dwarves let out low whistles.

     “You know,” Bilbo said as he stood, wanting nothing more than to rub at his bruised leg, he didn’t notice how Dwalin wasn’t moving or speaking. “There are other ways to get me to leave Thorin.” Bilbo picked up a rock that had fallen from the wall and tossed it in his hand. “But you don’t have to point out my weaknesses. I already know that I’m not good enough for him.”

     With that he chucked the rock across the room at Dwalin’s resting battle hammers and knocked them over. Though they didn’t do any damage except to chip the floor, it made Bilbo feel good that he still had the accuracy of his arm. Without seeing if Dwalin would get up he marched, rather limped, out of the training rooms as the other soldiers gawked.

     Bilbo found himself in the rookery, the Ravens and Smaug resting in the late afternoon. The sun was about to set and Bilbo didn’t want to go home yet. Dwalin hadn’t followed Bilbo, nor had he sent anyone after him, so he kept walking until he saw the familiar sight of red-gold scales. Smaug lifted one eyelid and gazed at his best friend. And when he saw that Bilbo was red around the eyes and had little red blotches on his cheeks from crying, Smaug went on the defensive immediately.

     “What’s wrong? What happened?” Smaug lifted his head on a lengthening neck. Over the past month Smaug hadn’t grown so much as lengthened. His legs, wings and neck are much longer than they were during the battle. His tail had gotten thicker and he was completely furless but without fire or flame Smaug’s scales hadn’t hardened any more than when he could last fit in the fireplace.

     “I’ve just been kindly reminded that I should remain a baker’s son and stop this nonsense with Thorin.” Bilbo flopped onto the floor, nestled between tail and a furnace belly. “Dwalin has always hated me. I’m only surprised it has taken him this long to get his real feeling out about me.”

     Smaug didn’t know what to say, he was much too angry to trust himself to say anything helpful to his closest friend. “I thought you were in love with Thorin. Is this not true anymore?” Smaug said instead.

     “Of course I am my love for him hasn’t waned. But I often wonder, nay, I know I’m not right for him. I’m only a baker’s son, and he is a prince.” Bilbo sat back against his dragon, “There is no possibility of our union being blessed, even by Aule.”

     Smaug nodded his head, not agreeing but showing Bilbo that he was listening. Goodness, he was the worst at consoling anyone. “I know that status mean a lot to a lot of people. But of what I remember of him, he was kind. He didn’t turn us in. In fact, he even wrote a new law… just for us!” Smaug tried to get Bilbo to realize how much he thought Thorin loved him too. “Why would a prince do that if he didn’t think you both had a chance in his world?”

      “Because he- Oh, I don’t know.” Bilbo fiddled with his sleeve. His hands had stopped shaking from all of his energy spent. Now, though, he was sore and weak and could barely handle tearing off the unravelling thread. Instead he tried to tie it off but even that was too much. “I just don’t think I’m enough for someone as great as Thorin Oakenshield. Just ignore, for a moment that he’s a prince. He’s an accomplished soldier, he’s majestic, and his strength has been talked of even before I’d met him. How can someone as beautiful and capable as him even want me?”

     It wasn’t normal for Bilbo, usually very level headed and somewhat foul mouthed to voice his concerns and worries as he was now. Smaug began to think that he was suffering from some major doubt and was about to call off the not-even-confirmed wedding. Though, if the Ravens are to be believed, the Royal Family was about to make their way to Moria to officially visit and court Bilbo and his family. Smaug worried that Bilbo wouldn’t be able to pull himself out of his funk in enough time.

     “Well then,” Smaug got up and turned to face his brother, the whole of his length behind him. “I guess we’ll just have to prove that Thorin is the one who’ll have to earn your respect.”

     “How?” Bilbo pouted but was curious.

     “Well, how many of the royal family can fly?”

     “None, but, Smaug-“

     “How many have single handedly fought off orcs?”

     “I’m not-“

     “How many have a dragon?”

     And that’s when Bilbo finally understood where Smaug was going with this. No one else, in all of Middle Earth, can fly a dragon. None have a dragon to fly or fight with. There has been and most likely will be no one else in this age that can. By The Maker’s Hammer Bilbo was Dragonscreamer. He was the small non-dwarf who had fought off waves of orcs to save his family and Moria’s citizens. Together, Bilbo and Smaug would be the most undefeated orc killers in history. They would become legends. But Bilbo didn’t really care for fame, to never sink into oblivion. As long as he had Thorin by his side and his best friend at his other, Bilbo felt that he could accomplish anything. And the diminutive words Dwalin likes to spit towards him would mean nothing to his accomplishments.

     “I get you, Smaug.” Bilbo smiled and stood, the Ravens were swirling around overhead preparing for Smaug to take flight. His wings had been pumping and now he was hovering lazily in the air. “You’ve been training too, though, haven’t you? Are you strong enough?”

     “Only one way to find out, my friend,” Smaug landed and helped Bilbo to climb onto his neck and settle behind Smaug’s protruding jaw. The ridge of Smaug’s back wasn’t so sharp there and Bilbo was still waiting for the adjustable leatherwork to be done before climbing on Smaug’s back. But sitting here, as they took off and joined the Raven’s in the air was something that he thought he’d never be able to experience.

     The thought of being airborne was frightening to many dwarves; for to be airborne meant that you were falling off a cliff or into a crevasse. But in Bilbo’s singular case, to be airborne meant to be in control of your fall. They raised up, up, up nearer to the sky, taking flight in the crisp evening air. The lightening trees surrounding the entrance to Moria were yellow dots on the mountain. The Misty Mountains were cloaked and rising up into the air and they flew higher and higher than that. Bilbo could feel the sharpness in his lungs, the lightheadedness from the height, but he didn’t care. To be airborne was to be free of the caves.

     For every moment that Bilbo had been alive, he’d been waiting for this time and place. To be so high in the sky he wondered if they could see the Grey Haven’s, or Forodwaith, or the blackened lands under Mount Doom. The lands were so completely attainable to Bilbo in this one moment, that Bilbo could understand why those in power relish it. He was master and commander of the wind with Smaug. Together they conquered the winds, laughed at the fall of all objects as they rose and swooped and floated. Here, in the space between the stars and the earth, Bilbo felt like king.

\--

     Walking in the sky had been fantastic, everything that Bilbo ever hopes for. But when he’s forced to come in due to the cold and the night creeping in on their tails, Bilbo is loath to return underground; for above the rock lay dirt and green things and everything living and breathing. Bilbo swears that he could feel the magic where elves had walked, or that he could feel the earth breathing above ground. But here, in the torch lit caves there was only darkness and a different kind of magic than what was out there. Though it wasn’t unpleasant, oh no, this was his home, the only place he had ever known. But out _there_ was more. More roads, more people, more green growing things. Bilbo wished to be out there to experience it all. But alas, he walked the long distance from the rookery to his home.

     Bilbo could hear the triplets screaming about the house as Adnzeth and one of her friends gave chase. He could hear his mother yelling at Mikh for something and his father bellow in a boisterous laughter. Bilbo smiled and stood on the front stoop for a little while, waving to those who acknowledged him and spoke Dragonscreamer. Even after all this time after the battle, Bilbo was still getting used to his name. It was usually too much when families would approach him in the market and thank him for everything he and Smaug had done that day. But the most rewarding part was when he was paid. That was when he could take that money, set some aside for his family and spend the rest on helping those who had lost everything to the orcs. Helping others was always something Bilbo was best at.

     “BILBO!” Vala yelled from inside the house. Bilbo rolled his eyes and walked into the house of chaos. Like their last house, there was a good amount of yelling, shouting, game playing and wrestling, here, though, they actually had room to do it. Dodging his younger brother’s tackled Bilbo danced his way into the kitchen where his mother was.

     “How is it you always know I’m home?” Bilbo asked as he took a bread roll and stuffed his mouth before one of the triplets, Biuri maybe, could snatch it from his hand. Laz (surely) reached for a roll from the basket and hopped around Doka playing keep away.

     “Because I’m your mother, I always know where my children are at.” Vala spoke with confidence. Bombur sat at the table, where he usually could be found, and waited patiently for dinner to be called. The house was utter chaos so no one could hear the meek and mild Ori knock on the door.

     “SIR ORI!” one of the triplets yelled. Bilbo and Vala could hear an ‘oof’ while Bombur laughed. Laz and Biuri were each on Ori’s legs, Doka trailed behind carrying Ori’s spilled books.

     “Good evening, Ori.” Vala cooed from her soup pot. Bilbo couldn’t help but wonder at the venison stew and apple tartlets competing with another creating a strange but pleasant aroma. “What do we owe the pleasure tonight?”

     Ori fumbled with his scarves and sleeves before sitting down where Doka had placed his books. “I’m here to teach – and to ask Bilbo something.” The red-head mumbled with a slight lisp. Bilbo thought it was adorable and he was suddenly very curious as to how Dwalin felt about Ori’s speech.

     “Of course, anything,” Bilbo offered a bread roll to Ori and sat from across from him. “Maybe we could sit one of these little beasties down and help them with their writing, first.”

     “NO!”

     “NO!”

     “NO!” Came the chorus dissent. All three siblings suddenly became scarcer than dwarves found in trees.

     Bilbo and Ori snickered while they watched three retreat. Ori got serious quickly and fidgeted with the hem of his sleeve again. “Master Bilbo,”

     “Bilbo, please. I’m nobody’s master.” Bilbo urged Ori to continue.

     “I was wondering… well… that is to say,” Ori chewed his lip. “What was it like, knowing that Thorin is your One?” Bilbo could feel more than one set of eyes on him as the house got darker. Vala, without Bilbo knowing, began blushing for her son, Bombur looked the proud father and Bilbo’s siblings peeked around the corners of the kitchen. “I just wondered if fear is a normal thing to feel with this. Both of my brother’s haven’t ever found theirs yet so I couldn’t ask.”

     Bilbo swallowed his answer. How did he know? Well, for starters, he had felt an instant attraction to Thorin. He remembers the atmosphere of the Blind Ogre had given Thorin a sort of dangerous and mysterious look to him. He remembers seeing the silver beads, the raven black hair, and his stunning eyes. He remembers feeling a deep and incessant thrumming throughout his body, he remembers thinking that if he’d take in the slightest breath, he could smell the mead on his lips, the leatherwork protecting his body, the metallic tang of his armor. And knowing now what the weapon’s oil tastes like, he imagined that was what Thorin would taste like.

     “Erm, well,” Bilbo wondered how he could explain it to Ori. “Yes, it’s normal to feel fear, I think. I’m afraid that something will prevent us from being accepted, from being able to love one another as we should. But when I think of him, I’m honestly equal parts angry and in love.” Bilbo laughed at Ori’s expression. “Aye, Thorin deceived me. He hadn’t once eluded to the fact that he was royal. This whole time he’d made me believe that he was a soldier, an officer. Nay, that was Dwalin. Thorin hadn’t said a word as to who he truly was. Why, he’d given me Oakenshield before his first name.” The curly haired dwarf shook his head and let a queer smile grace his face. “But to think of his eyes, sparkling and clear as the sky, everything that he is, makes me fall in love with him again.”

     “Oh aye,” Ori sat back and got a wistful look on his face as well. “Every time I think of Dwalin I feel the same way, exactly the same. But there’s nothing that makes me believe that we couldn’t possibly be right for another. It’s destined since Mahal split our stone in half. Others may not approve, like my brothers, but they can’t deny that we are made for another. That we are One.”

     Bilbo felt something cold linger in his stomach. He’d actually felt that Thorin would believe that Bilbo wasn’t his One, after some time. He also worried that others would notice that Bilbo wasn’t enough of a dwarf to be acceptable for Thorin. Bilbo had feared that someone would keep him from Thorin, or that Thorin would tire of this ‘child’ and turn to the next poor sop who’d fall for his words. “Aye,” he said, “They can’t deny it.”

     Ori was halfway through the lesson when Bilbo noticed Dwalin sneaking into the kitchen. Ori’s back was to the opening and Bombur and Vala began chuckling slightly, Bilbo held his face as still as he could before Dwalin attacked Ori. The poor red-head yelped and jumped and when he found that it was Dwalin who had surprised him, began beating him with one of Ori’s heavier books. Bilbo rocked in his chair as Dwalin took the beating graciously.

     “Oh, my love, I had not meant to frighten you.” Dwalin half groaned half laughed from his crouched position. Ori had taken to ignoring him and turned half away from the soldier. Bilbo noticed a slight lump on the back of Dwalin’s head and wondered where it could have come from. Dwalin kept begging for Ori’s forgiveness.

     “You had meant to startle.” Ori refused to give in.

     “Not as entirely as I had.” Dwalin scooted closer to his One before putting his hands politely on his own knees instead of scooping up the dwarfling into his arms like he wanted to. Bilbo’s heart felt a sharp pain as he realized he and Thorin won’t have these moments for some years now. “I am sorry, _azyungal_.”

     “You should try harder to apologize. And not just for me, I heard what you have done today.” Ori turned towards Dwalin slightly, nose still high and arms still crossed. “I should hold you responsible for His Highness’ betrothed.”

       At this Dwalin looked confused and glanced between Ori and Bilbo great hair flopping as he did so. “What do ye mean?”

     “What have you done to my son, Dwalin son of Fundin? And do be quick with your answer or I shan’t hesitate to inform the Ri brothers of your scheming.” Vala turned with a dripping spoon and shook it at Dwalin as if he weren’t half the size of a bear.

     Dwalin, for his part, shuddered and stood abruptly, startling Ori again. “I’ve don’ no such thing, Ma’am. Bilbo had a slight scare this afternoon and-“

     “A slight scare?” Bilbo almost screamed. “I almost fell off of that great rock wall! And you had been slinging insults at me the entire time. I shall tell you that that was the least pleasant experience I’ve ever had, and I’ve fought orc’s for bloody sake.” Bilbo wanted to shout and rail at Dwalin some more, but according to Ori’s looks, that was his sole responsibility.

     “You’ve what?” Ori squeaked, not sounding half as mad as Bilbo, Ori was more surprised than anything.

     “I hadn’t given you insult, Bilbo, merely encouraging you to try harder.” Dwalin looked down to the long haired dwarfling.

     “If you call that encouragement I’d really hate to see what you consider an insult. I was dangling for my life and you tell me that I’m a no good dwarf. You inferred that I was no good for Thorin and I shan’t stand being mocked of.” Bilbo was righteously angry now. Ori floundered like a fish and Vala was growling some mighty unpleasant things. Bilbo now knew where he’d gotten his penchant for cursing from.

     “I hadn’t don’ no such thing.” Dwalin argued. “Cracked Forges, you are, I was tryin’ ta get you angry to find more strength. I knew that you didn’t have much left after fighting for that ledge. I was tryin’ ter get you to find and use that strength.” Dwalin didn’t shuffle, he hadn’t even really move except for his lips. “I wanted you to see that you could do it yerself. Yer too used to doing things for yer family, yeh gotter learn to do it for yerself. And before you knocked me unconscious, I was about to say that it wasn’t that difficult, now was it? Finding your way down, yer not always going to have someone to help save yer arse from a ledge.”

     Bilbo threw his remaining bread roll at Dwalin and was about to blow, “Yes, after that battle I realized that I’m not always going to have Smaug with me. You didn’t even stop to consider yourself that I’m quite used to having to find a footing myself. When those orcs started pushing us off the ledge, Smaug wasn’t as strong as he is now. He fell, just like the rest of us. Yes, if he wasn’t there to help me I wouldn’t be here. We all wouldn’t be here. So to tell me of my faults and weakness’ as I gripped that ledge for my life and felt like those countless who had fallen. Those dwarrows, dwarrowdams and dwarflings who didn’t have the aid of a dragon to lift them back up. You know nothing of my fears and nothing of my lack of strength to help them.

     “It was only thanks to Smaug that we were able to chase those brutes back into the darkness. So don’t EVER tell me that I’m not strong enough without my dragon because I very well know what I am.”

     Bilbo felt tears streaming down his face and regardless of his crying his voice hadn’t even cracked. He was very proud of that fact. Dwalin looked to Bilbo with new eyes while Ori himself was covering his mouth with his gloved hands and crying too.

     “I-hadn’t known.” Dwalin looked defeated. “No one had said that you had almost fallen.”

     “We had fallen, and it was only by some degree of luck or blessing that Smaug figured out how to fly in that instance.” Bilbo sat back down and reached for another roll. “He’d used his flame to drive back the orcs, but before then so many had fallen, and we’d heard each one of their screams. Even this young, I know death’s name. We have met and I know we will meet again, and until then I vow to do my best to stay that day. I want what you both already have. I can’t see my One and I can’t know what he would say to comfort me, to anger me, to drive me to my wits end and then to talk me into loving him again. I have not experienced that yet.

     “And I’m jealous of you both for flaunting that. But not on my accounts should you stop. Enjoy what you have.”

     Bilbo hadn’t intended to allow himself to go that far. He hated talking about his weakness’, let alone fears, in front of the same dwarf that was in charge of his training. Bilbo knew that Dwalin would use some of his fears to his advantage. But at that moment, he was just happy to finally get it off of his chest. Before anyone could even stop him, Bilbo tore off towards his room. Ori and Vala tried to stop him.

     The dwarfling wished that he had the energy and strength to walk all the way to the rookery again. He wouldn’t mind spending the night with Smaug. His poor friend was probably lonely anyways. Because of Bilbo’s new schedule he couldn’t make as much time with Smaug as they’d had before the Orcs attacked. Now, though, the dragon’s company was the only thing he wanted right now, not even the usually comforting thoughts of his One could comfort him. He didn’t feel like Ori does with Dwalin, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that Dwalin was his and his alone for the rest of their life. He didn’t share those same feelings with Thorin as he wished he did.

     Alone in his room, a bed and chest of clothes the only things in there, Bilbo paced the floorboards in a semi-panic. He’d thought about the possibility of losing Thorin for so long he’d considered calling the whole thing off. Bilbo bit his fingernails in a nervous habit and walked himself dizzy in a circle. He finally stopped and flopped onto his bed with exasperation.

     Today had been such a long day for him. First it had started with Dwalin shouting at him for not being ready by the time the older dwarf had arrived. The warrior had dogged his steps through his whole morning routine, then when he was asked of the shortest route to the triaining grounds Dwalin hadn’t even bothered to wait for the rest of Bilbo’s instructions. After being blamed for the misdirection he’d been forced into such difficult training and sparring sessions that he’d been almost too tired to sling any sort of curse towards the older dwarf. Then the ledge, his much needed time alone with Smaug, then Ori had shown up, then Dwalin, and now... now. Now, he was just tired and didn’t want to deal with anything at all. He was exhausted, mentally and physically that even the call of ‘dinner’ hadn’t given him enough energy.

     Rolling onto this side to scoot his way off his bed anyways, Bilbo realized that there was a crumpling sound underneath him. In the near dark Bilbo found a flint and lit the candle on the windows sill as quickly as he could and returned to the bed. There, on his mussed up bedding sat a squished roll of parchment with the Durin blue wax with their royal seal. Suddenly, Bilbo’s hands were like a swamp (though he’d never seen what one would be like, his mother often said his sweaty hands were swamp hands), and he reached for the letter with shaking hands. His fingers brushed the waxy parchment and carefully broke the seal. He unfolded the parchment and read the first line.

     _My Dearest Bilbo,_

     And butterflies had nothing on the flips his stomach was doing. His chest clenched with emotion, tears welled up as he recognized Thorin’s writing. He wanted to cry out, to shout to the rest that he had finally received a letter from Thorin. Again! He wanted the whole mountain to know that he had heard from his One. Bilbo twirled in place like a dame and landed on his back to read what was left… and there was plenty.

    _My warmest, most heartfelt regards to you and your health as last I knew Dwalin was heading your way. I trust, his instructions in your training are difficult, as he is a difficult dwarrow. I thought to warn you of his eccentricities, but I am confident that you can and will render him in such a way most befitting to your entertainment. Besides, I would hope to avoid removing the challenge of besting Dwalin in the ways I know you can._

_Dwalin, though a good soldier and a better friend, is a cousin of mine. I would not have sent him your way if I knew a better soldier to train you. Rather, I believe I didn’t trust anyone else. Forgive me, for I believe that he does not like you in the slightest. Whatever his prejudices are, please ignore them, find some way to forgive his slights. He does mean well._

_I confess I did send him to you with that in mind. I know that Dwalin wouldn’t dare to threaten your innocence. Not that you would feel the need or want to stray. ~~Should you find yourself wanting to leave me~~_

_Please don’t leave me. I love you with all my heart. I have never wanted, nor had I thought I needed, such a perfect and beautiful creature as you. I could laden all the ravens in this world with my letters to you describing every which way you make me need you. And still, it wouldn’t be enough._

_I long you. I desire you in the most simplest of terms. I fear if I were by your side, that should we have been under the same mountain, I would have a difficult time keeping your innocence intact. The many things I would like to do to your ~~body~~ Please forgive my vulgarity. I had hoped this would be a polite inquiry on your advancement in skills and fighting._

_On that note, my treasure, I must beg your forgiveness. I know you are not the fighting type. I would rather you remain in your family’s shop until I could properly wed you. But the world being as dark and cruel as it is, has sent my heart at-somewhat-ease knowing that you can defend yourself. I could have sent a raven ahead of Dwalin to explain his presence. But of the few moments that I had the exquisite pleasure of being in your presence, I gathered that you would have found some way to usurp me, thus, the reason for no forewarning._

_Ah, if I could only be by your side and show you how much I love you. I would wrap you in the finest silks. The deepest of emeralds and rubies (for that is all I could imagine draping you in). The thinnest traces of mithril stringing through your fine, golden hair would glint in our chamber room candle lights. Diamond dust encrusted sheer would cover your luscious body just so. Your emeralds and rubies would protect your most tender spaces. The finest and richest of oils would soften your skin to butter. And I would map every part of your body in a most pleasurable amount of time. I would like to shake your world multiple times before you could deign to remember your name. But I would call it out, every second of every day if you wished it._

_My lovely, most desired, utterly remarkable, and wonderfully capable dwarf, I would sing your praises among the parapets and off the battlements should you command it. I would strike forges deep for your appeasement. I would slay the mightiest of foes in your name. I would tend to your triplet siblings for the entirety of the night just to earn your love._

     Bilbo laughed at this, his siblings being compared to such mighty challenges; that part would tickle them to no end should they get a hold of this letter.

     _There is nothing that can hold us apart. Not the gods of this world or the next. Not a thousand leagues or ten thousand Orcs could stand in my way. I am here for you, thinking of you intimately, confident and knowing that you will be mine._

_Until such a time can exist between us, I remain, ever loyal, loving, and forever,_

_Yours_

     Bilbo couldn’t believe his luck! Here he was moaning about how un-right he was for Thorin, and how he believed that the prince would eventually find a better mate than Bilbo, also how he couldn’t even display his affection for his love. And this letter, like the last, made him blush from the crown of his head to the tips of his furry toes. Bilbo felt as if he could fly himself. He felt as if he could take on any enemy. Oh how he wanted to write back to Thorin and let him know what he was feeling for his dwarf too.

     And that’s what he was going to do. But first, he had to find Ori before he left.

     Bilbo dashed back down the hall and turned the sharp corner almost knocking down that blundering idiot of a soldier. Ignoring the sputtering dwarf Bilbo pressed on to Ori.

     “My dear Ori, I have a request.” Bilbo was certainly blushing now. It was all too surreal, his letter from Thorin, the proclamations within, and the feelings renewed. And wasn’t Bilbo just saying how he’d never know what Thorin would say to make him fall in love again? Well, it had happened. Thorin was unpredicatable, but it was a pleasant sort of thing that kept Bilbo on his toes, waiting and wishing for more when he’d just been quenched. “Can you write me a letter?”

     Ori looked down to the half crumpled letter in Bilbo’s hand, noticed the blue was seal and nodded his head. “Anything for you Mas- Bilbo.” Ori looked behind the younger dwarf and made his best impression of a glare. His cheeks puffed, a light dusting of a blush was barely visible, and his lips were a thin line pressed between teeth. “I would be honored to assist you. Which color of ink would you like? I’ve got a blue, black and a red if you’re f-f-feeling d-aring.” Ori’s blush increased.

     “He will be using black, thank you very much.” Vala said as she passed out soup bowls around the table, “He needn’t entice His Highness into such improper thoughts during their courtship.”

     Without turning towards his mother it was Bilbo’s turn to blush. Thankfully, she hadn’t read the letter. He’d have to take precautions to hiding it from not only his siblings, but his mother as well. “Black will do, Sir Ori.” Bilbo teased with the name and Ori nodded his head to him, not able to say anything.

     “Why don’t you write it yerself?” the dwarf behind Bilbo gruffed out. Ori shot him another glare before Bilbo interrupted.

     “I can read just fine, but it’s the writing that I have trouble with.” Bilbo admitted. “Though it’s taken me so long to learn to read, I taught everyone else to read too, I’ve never had the time to learn to write too. What with raising a fugitive dragon, working to get him enough meat, helping my parents when I wasn’t working, raising my siblings, socializing with my friends, and finding enough sleep to prepare for it all after I teach the children to read. They know their markings now. But it’s sentances and the such they need help on.” Bilbo paused to look Dwalin dead in the eye.

     “Tell me, Dwalin, where would I have found the time or the coin (as I am a lowly baker’s son) to learn to write. And let’s not forget that I have had to learn very quickly on how to survive and fight against Orcs. If I only knew how to write, I would have been writing to Thorin this whole time, if that’s what your worried about.”

     Dwalin heaved his thick shoulders, and out of the corner of Bilbo’s eyes he saw Ori shiver. It was the same shiver Bilbo had had in his room while reading Thorin’s letter. “Busted Hammers, Bilbo, I hadn’t meant it like that. I was about to steal him away for myself. Had I known you would have taken it personally,”

     “Of course he would take it personally, you have all the tenderness of a warg in battle when it comes to conversations.” Ori practically shouted, which was to say he was on a normal speaking level. “You are not in the busy city of Erebor, my love, you are in Moria. We are stout, short-tempered and stubborn. Make one wrong remark and most wouldn’t hesitate in throwing you out on your round bum.”

     “You like my bum.” Dwalin retaliated.

     Ori stuttered, turned several shades of red, and dropped his gaze. Dwalin chuckled and started walking nearer to the dwarfling. There was strange glint in Dwalin’s eyes that Bilbo couldn’t understand. But when Bombur had made a casual remark on the strength of Dori’s arms Dwalin blanched and jumped back a few paces. Bilbo would have laughed had he not remembered his original mission.

     “Ori,” The young scribe looked up to him.

    “I can help you write it tonight, or tomorrow sometime. I can interrupt your training so that we may ink it out.” Ori glared up at his One and gave the hint of a smile knowing that he’d be the only one allowed to interrupt Dwalin with anything. “He’ll make time for me.”

     The last part was said as a challenge to Dwalin, daring him to argue. Dwalin gave up and sighed mightily. “In the meantime, Bilbo, I’ll work on my own tactics.” And Bilbo somehow knew that it was some form of apology and a promise.

     “That will do, thank you, Dwalin.” Bilbo didn’t turn to see Dwalin roll his eyes good naturedly. Ori giggled like a tween and covered his mouth.

     Bilbo could hardly sleep after the days’ activities. Well, to be fair, the only thing that was on his mind is what he was going to have Ori write to Thorin. Thorin. Thorin. Thorin.

     Bilbo giggled like Ori had earlier and rolled onto his side. He was alone in the bed, there were enough rooms in this house for everyone to have their own. And wasn’t that a privilege? Bilbo fell asleep wondering what silk felt like, or how pleasant the heavy emeralds and rubies would be on his skin. The dwarfling fell asleep wondering if Thorin’s kiss would taste like the weapon’s oil. Or if he’d taste like wild lilac.

     Wild lilac.

     A bush, large and dominating in the middle of a field, no, a garden and surrounded by many more flowers. Little white ones, tiny red ones, yellow bowl shaped ones, flowers that looked like spiders, and stars, and flowers that were as big as his head. He saw flowers that draped and flowers that swayed in a honey smooth breeze amongst tall green grass. Knobby hills rolling and rolling and rolling with smoke rising from them. There were stone steps, wicker fences and a round door.

     He barely remembered seeing it, barely recognized it as a door, because it was as green as the fields around it. But it was a door, with a brass nob and acorns littering the stone steps. And suddenly, there was screaming, and black ooze that soaked his blankets. He was wrapped up in those sodden blankets, screaming, crying and wanting his mama. But he was too little and Smaug wasn’t around to help him. He watched as golden curls bounced in the dying sunlight. A gentle and soothing ‘Hush, my darling little one’ and a ‘mama loves you, papa loves you, forever and for always’. Then the green door closed, shutting him out of the lovely garden with all the flowers and the honey breeze.

     Bilbo woke up feeling cold, the stone house around him felt oppressive for the first time in his life. He felt like he was choking on the air from the mines, he felt as if he’d been hidden from the sun for too long, skin gone white and pasty from the lack of that golden orb. He longed for the touch of cool green grass under his feet, to feel the squish of dirt and worms between his toes. His lungs ached to smell the open air and the fragrance of too many flowers. Bilbo fought with his blankets, wrapped around him as if he were an infant in his swaddle. He looked down and saw the black ichor from his dream. Two blinks and it was gone.

     Blood. He had seen Orc blood in his dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! I finally got this chapter out! I'm so sorry you all had to wait for so long! Follow me on [tumblr](http://tangebaby.tumblr.com/) to receive instant updates.


	5. Reciprocation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo and Dwalin continue to train, and the dwarfling finally replies to Thorin's debatable letter.

     Dwalin had noticed that Bilbo had not a lot of concentration today. That was normal for how much the little one had been training. It was difficult for new recruits to become accustomed to the lifestyle of soldiers. Dwalin was only too used to this lifestyle as his father had served the king in the past, but it wasn’t difficult to assume that Bilbo was having a much more difficult time assimilating. The dwarfling dodged and weaved as much as he could but he was still getting slapped by the wooden training sword Dwalin wielded.

       “Focus.” Dwalin tapped Bilbo’s hand again as the lad made the wrong motion for a lunge. Bilbo’s resulting effort would have given him a gutting in battle. He left himself wide open and his movements were sloppy. “If ye cannot do it right, then you should just give up!”

       Bilbo would have growled at the larger dwarf had he the energy, but as it was, he just huffed some more and got his feet under him again. Readying for a parry Bilbo tensed as he saw Dwalin’s blade move to smack him again. “Och, will you stop that!”

     “Why? What’s the matter, Bilbo?” Dwalin teased his smile wide and full of teeth.

     “It stings.” Bilbo wanted to pout. Instead he shook his hand out and glared at the brute.

     Dwalin laughed at Bilbo, “What do you imagine a blade cutting you to pieces would feel like? Or how about a spear through your gut? Those are more unpleasant than a slap to your knuckles.”

     “Yes but do you have to make it smart so much? It’s excessive.” Bilbo steadied his hand again and readied his feet for another onslaught from Dwalin. They were the only ones in the training room at this time, others choosing to take their afternoon meals, Dwalin had completed a few easy steps with Bilbo to which he successfully blocked.

     “You don’t like pain.” Dwalin began the second set.

     “No one likes pain.” Bilbo huffed.

     “Learn from your pain now, so you won’t feel so much later.” Dwalin reasoned. Bilbo didn’t dare pause as they talked.

     “I suppose, then, you hadn’t felt pain there.” Bilbo quickly indicated Dwalin’s head of scars and tattoos. When the second set was over, Bilbo was allowed a respite to gather his breath again while Dwalin prepared to answer, watching the dwarfling gasp.  

     “What? These?” Dwalin pointed at a particularly nasty scar. “It’s better than the alternative.” Dwalin readied his sword again, not waiting for Bilbo this time. The third set was more compolicated and Bilbo had an obviously difficult time with it. His sword hand was beginning to cramp, but instead of telling Dwalin this, he kept pushing himself. Bilbo told himself that Dwalin would only yell at him because of his weakness, that in battle, you won’t have time to shake out your hand and take a breather. Your enemy won’t let you and Dwalin most assuredly wouldn’t let him.

     “What was-the-alternative?” Bilbo asked between hits, he began giving up ground but noticed he was near the edge of the raised ring so he shifted his feet awkwardly to avoid twisting his ankle on the edge. Bilbo’s bare feet shuffled over the dirty stone floor, kicking over a pebble that would have embedded its sharp edge into his leathered foot.

     Dwalin was impressed at the advancement he’d made since that morning, before, Bilbo wasn’t able to get the footing down correctly and would trip over his abnormally long feet. But he watched Bilbo defend himself against Dwalin’s hard hits, biting his bottom lip in concentration only to release the worried lip before he bit on to it.

     “This is an axe wound.” Dwalin said with gravity. “I was meant to die with this. But,” Bilbo suddenly thrust through Dwalin’s parry and poked him in the side, “too many hits to the head from my father taught me to duck.”

     Bilbo gaped at his hit, the irst to go through. Dwalin smiled and gave Bilbo a barrage of attacks he knew Bilbo wasn’t ready for. The blunted sword went flying out of Bilbo’s hand and clattered to the floor with Bilbo yelling and cursing in pain.

     “There is no absolute success with you as my instructor, is there.” Bilbo said smartly. Bilbo’s dark glare made Dwalin laugh despite earning the lad’s anger, the laugh was all the answer Bilbo was going to get.

     “Dwalin,” a slightly chastiwsing voice interrupted Bilbo’s training. Dwalin had instantly straightened at the voice of his One and glanced about the room to find Ori walking to a set of benches laden with writing material – as usual. A blush colored the warriors cheeks before flushing completely white at the sight of Dori and Nori. Bilbo didn’t feel any guilt about being vindicated, even if it was an indirect action. “Quit teasing him. Bilbo, I’ve got your things.”

     Bilbo and Dwalin was only glad to take a rest and join the others at the benches, each for their own reasons. Dwalin approached Ori cautiously, he kept his hands behind his back and stayed a safe distance away from his betrothed. All Dwalin wanted to do was lift his dwarf into his arms and kiss him all day, which was a disconcerting feeling because of its strangeness. Dwalin had never, once in his life, been brought to his knees as quickly as his dwarf had him. All Ori would have to do is ask Dwalin to conquer kingdoms with his small voice and adorable lisp, and Dwalin would do it. There wasn’t anything his Ori could ask of him that he wouldn’t do. Which was why Dori and Nori had most heartily agreed to be the exclusive chaperones for the couple.

     “Good morning, beryl.” Dwalin cooed at Ori, to which the young dwarf blushed and hid his chin in his scarves. The freckles on Ori’s cheeks begged to be kissed tenderly and the dwarf’s flaming ear lobes tempted Dwalin to suckle. “How has been your day thusfar?”

     “It’s fine,” Ori looked back to his brother embarrassed, “now.” Ori gifted Dwalin with his shiest smile and the larger dwarf ached to tickle his bashful dwarf. “The library is in utter chaos. There are sections where the book cases have collapsed thanks to Nori and his… erm, perching.”

     “Perching?” Bilbo asked from the bench where he was currently making his best impression of a wet and dirty rag.

     “Yes,” Ori sighed dramatically, glaring harmlessly at his snickering brother who wandered threateningly towards Dwalin, evil gleam in his eyes. “He tends to take up ‘perch’ on the highest places. He claims he has a better vantage up high than sneaking along the floors.”

     Ori took a seat next to the sprawled out Bilbo affording him a shy glance before giving Dwalin an exasperated one.

     “We should go see Smaug,” Bilbo said before sitting up and looking at Dwalin pointedly. “If we’ve got time.” Ori joined in on giving Dwalin a stern look, and one glance over his shoulder told Dwalin that he should listen to his betrothed.

     “Of – course we have time.” Dwalin hesitated. “Is there not a pub we can get food? I don’t want another cold meat sandwich when there’s hot food.”

     “My mother slaved over that bread, Mister Dwalin.” Bilbo said matter-of-factly, his tone and attitude not giving anything away as he stood up and squared his shoulders. Ori snickered at Dwalin’s side, careful that they weren’t touching, and nodded his head towards Bilbo.

     “I wasn’t speaking ill of your mother’s bread.” Dwalin huffed, folding his massive arms in defense. He hoped to cow the younger non-dwarf with his impressive size, but Bilbo wasn’t shaken.

     “Then my father’s meat cuts surely aren’t the complaint.” Bilbo marched up to Dwalin, perhaps he was taking Thorin’s go-ahead and attempting to put Dwalin in his place with his words. Everyone who’d ever gotten in a spat with Bilbo knew that there were no equals. Even the periodical scribe was talked into circles when Bilbo had gotten upset on the implications of his lesser birth living with the higher classes. “They are his favorites and he’d gotten quite a deal on them when he told the butcher they were for an Ereborian soldier. Father had been so happy to share what he loves with us. Even the children included their favorites into our prepared lunches. But you’re not _really_ upset about the meal, are you?”

     When Bilbo had finished speaking, Dwalin had been backed up to the nearby raised ring they had just finished training in. It wasn’t the fact that Bilbo was intimidating in his size, no, it was because of his size matched with his undoubtedly upfront persona that was intimidating. Dwalin had a sneaky feeling that Bilbo and his brother Balin would get along famously. And, of course, again, Dwalin realized why Thorin had such a twisted tongue when speaking with this curly haired dwarf.

     “I-“ Dwalin sputtered ineloquently, “didn’t mean that the food wasn’t good enough-“

     “’Good enough’, Master Dwalin?” Bilbo prompted.

     “That the food wasn’t inadequate, or distasteful,” Dwalin added hurriedly, he wasn’t afraid, it took a lot to make him afraid – like a certain set of triplets or over protective brothers. But Dwalin was very cautious of the pure power of speech Bilbo had, and he was sure this wasn’t the best that the young dwarf had. “I was merely suggesting that, after a few days of eating these lovely cuts,”

     “Do you not eat cold food on the road? Or even have time to prepare a hot meal during a war march? I had thought not.” Bilbo agreed with the silent Dwalin, “I’m merely preparing myself for less hot meals, I don’t want to spoil my body any longer than I have. Come, Master Dwalin, the rookery is this way.”

     There was more snickering and out right laughing on Ori’s part when Bilbo had taken to lead the small group out of the training halls and onto the main roads. Dwalin looked around him, Dori stepping up to the soldier and laying a heavy – but pretty – hand on Dwalin’s shoulders.

     “There’s not many who can take to a battle of wits with Master Bilbo.” Dori dropped his hand and leaned in closer to Dwalin. “Bilbo invents riddles every day! You can best him in swords, but you won’t have him with words.”

     “Then he’ll fit right in at Erebor.” Dwalin grumped moving to take up his hammers and strap them to his back. “He may well clean up the council with that tongue.”

     “Most assuredly,” Dori agreed following the tough and brooding soldier who patiently followed the meek and mild Ori. Dori watched how the two interacted. Dwalin with his hands behind his back and Ori carrying his things protectively, it was a sight to behold. When a dwarfling can render the soldier into agreement was one thing, to render that same soldier into silence by another dwarfling was something else. With a most bashful look from Ori, Dwalin would lose his tongue and gulp down his nerves, look away, and meet Ori’s gaze evenly with a deep blush matching the scribe.

     It was no contest as to who would win that particular argument when it had come up. All the protectiveness that Dori and Nori had for their brother had nothing to how much Ori had longed to be with Dwalin, and it took Dori far too long to agree to the match in Nori’s opinion.

   “Relax, brother,” Nori ghosted up behind the silverhaired dwarf, “he’s been proper the entire time. And they are absolutely smitten with each other. Dwalin won’t hurt him.”

    “It’s not Ori’s safety I’m worried about.” Dori squared his shoulders before dropping his lip in a slight quiver, “It’s letting him go that has me worried. He’ll have to move, you know. Dwalin is His Highness’ captain, he’s got a good position within the kingdom, and Ori would be more than happy to move to be that much closer to a grander library than Moria could ever offer.”

     Dori looked over to his younger brother and held back a chuckle when he saw Nori’s dark look. The red-haired dwarf pinned a glare at Dwalin’s back, as if he were to blame for it all, and strut with more purpose.

     “Over my rotting and slimy corpse will that beslubbering idjit take Ori away.”

 

\--

 

     When the group of dwarves finally made their way to the rookery Smaug and settled himself up on the opening of the cave where the Raven’s make their way in and out. It was still just wide enough of an opening for Smaug to slither in and out when he wanted. So when Bilbo had come running in calling for Smaug, the dragon was so excited he almost slipped from his hold fifty feet up. He recovered by making a graceful swoop down to the floor, tackling Bilbo in a graceless hug with his wings.

     Bilbo giggled excitedly and gripped on tightly to Smaug.

     “You act as if we never see each other.” Bilbo tittered. Smaug only tightened his hold and nuzzled Bilbo’s hair.

     “It’s been an age and a half at least, Bilbo.” The red-scaled beast relinquished his hold on the dwarfling and allowed Bilbo to stand. His hair in a mess Bilbo straightened out his clothes and patted down his length of braid. Thankfully Bilbo had fixed it tightly this morning, but his unruly hair was still escaping the plait.

     Bilbo stood next to Smaug, the dragon at least thirty feet in length now from snout to tip of tail, his wings almost half a size more than his length. Bilbo was never so happy that Thorin had been able to pass the protection law for domesticated dragons. He couldn’t imagine letting Smaug grow up in that small house, even his size now was larger than the length of the house then. Bilbo made himself promise to mention his thankfulness to Thorin.

     “I’m sorry, my friend,” Bilbo stood back and watched as Smaug bounced his tail as a cat would just before pouncing. “Mister Dwalin has given me some time to write back to Thorin, and Mister Ori is going to help. I wanted to get your help on what to say.” Bilbo picked at his nails in a nervous gesture he wasn’t able to abandon.

     “I’m sure with your gift of words, Bilbo, you can manage yourself.” Dwalin gruffed from just behind Bilbo, he heard the larger dwarf give a pained groan and suspected that he got an elbow to the side from Ori.

     “I can, but I value my friend’s opinion. And mother and father aren’t here to mediate so I have Misters Dori and Nori to help and Smaug acting as family mediator.” Bilbo reasoned, quite well in fact, the involvement of the dragon’s presence. However, it was Bilbo’s selfish desire to escape the training rooms and enjoy his friend’s company that was the true motivator.

   Ori was already setting up at a table provided in the rookery, where a few young Ravens hopped around curiously. Ori excused himself to the young carrions and made a space for his things. As requested there was his expensive inks from the markets of Gondor that came from farther lands than what was found on any of Ori’s maps, he also had several pieces of parchment, dark tea-dyed looking pieces and pale ivory pieces as well. Lengths of ribbons in various rich and buttery colors were kept greedily inside of his messenger bag, but Ori was willing to allow Bilbo to use these ribbon’s he’d purchased for himself at the other dwarf’s will. It was his thanks to Bilbo for their friendship.

     Ori asked Bilbo which parchment he’d rather use, Bilbo pointed to the ivory white one and Ori nodded happily. Bilbo started feeling on edge, as if all eyes were on him and judging which words he was going to choose to write.

     “Right, how would you like to address it?” Ori looked up eager to hear what Bilbo would choose.

     “Erm,” Bilbo hesitated and picked at his fingernails again. “I-I’m not sure. ‘Your Highness’ sounds too official, like I’m writing on business. And I daren’t only call him Thorin, especially if the matriarch of our entire race will be reading this. Oh, Mahal,”

     “Well,” Ori interrupted quietly. “How does His Highness address his letters to you?”

     Bilbo blushed and rubbed at the tip of his button nose, “I-I’d rather not. I’m sure Thorin has his exceptions, being the prince, but I’d rather pen something more modest. More respectful.”

     Ori nodded, blushing too at the implications. Dwalin, on the other hand, cocked his head to the side looking intrigued. “How does he address you?”

     “Could I, rather,” Bilbo interrupted, “simply address him as, ‘My Dearest Prince’?”

     “Aye,” Dori agreed, “it’s respectful and not too enticing. It’ll do.” Nori nodded as he sat beside his brother on a bench.

     Four hours later, after reigning in Bilbo’s more penny story romance and editing his choice words Ori was finished. Dwalin had eventually drifted over to Smaug and was talking lowly with him. Dori and NOri sat on the bench, the younger smoking off a pipe. Bilbo looked exhausted but excited at finally being able to reply to his prince.

     As Ori was getting up the young scribe gave a little meep.

     “What is it?” Dwalin asked, moving swiftly to Ori’s side. NOri didn’t miss how quickly the soldier moved.

     “I’ve made an error.” Ori almost cried. The length of the parchment was rolled quickly before Dori made his way to his baby brother’s side.

     “But you never make a mistake – oof.” Dori said before getting a sharp elbow to his side compliments of Ori. The dwarfling smiled mischeviously but Bilbo wrote it off as family dynamics. Afterall, the triplets always wore that look.

     “I’ll make the edits and send it off another time. Don’t worry about payment yet, Bilbo.” Ori added sweetly as the other dwarfling dug for his purse.

     “If you insist,” Bilbo looked to Smaug just in time to see the beast tilting his head and open9ing his maw as if to consume Dwalin whole. The soldier was too busy watching Ori bending and packing his things to notice. “Smaug!”

     The dragon snapped his mouth shut audibly and caused Dwalin to jump, whirl around with his hammer pointed followed by a chuckle and laugh from Dori and Nori respectfully.

     “What were you doing?” Bilbo asked.

     “I was-“ Smaug would have been blushing in embarrassment if he could. Dwalin looked behind him, trying to figure something out. “I realized how much smaller you look now.”

     Smaug’s tail twitched like a cat who was about ready to pounce. The dragon was looking bigger, but Bilbo hadn’t seen a new shed of skin yet and Smaug wasn’t looking for a fire. “Well you can’t go around measuring your bite with the height of dwarves. You know there are some who still are afraid of you, despite how we’ve helped during that raid.”

     “I know, but, Bilbo,” Smaug sat a little straighter, looking now like a dog being chastised. “We’re bigger and stronger than they are. We don’t have to fear anyone! We can fly and breathe fire.”

     Bilbo didn’t know what was getting into his best friend, his brother, he’d never talked like this before. Dwalin had taken a few cautious steps back, reaching out an arm as if to bar Ori from imminent danger. Dori and Nori sat statue still on the bench looking in the odd pair’s direction. Bilbo stepped forward. “Why are you talking like this?”

     Smaug lay down snout angled toward’s Bilbo’s familiar touch. He remembers the times his dwarfling friend would cuddle him close, sleeping in the same bed. Smaug had always radiated heat and warmed Bilbo through the night, and Bilbo’s touch never failed to calm him. It was more akin to a mother’s touch, unmistakable, unreplaceable, and softening even his bones into relaxation with a sense of being thoroughly protected and loved. Smaug craved that attention, that love, from his friend. And as soon as Bilbo’s slim fingers, cold in comparison to his scales, cupped his nose Smaug was flush with all those emotions.

     “I’m sorry.” Smaug said after a while of gentle petting. The strokes of Bilbo’s tiny hands, the bump of foreheads and the smell of grass that was Bilbo settled something inside of Smaug. “I didn’t mean to think that way. Only that, well, we’re protected now, right? We don’t have to fear anything. Together we are strong.”

     “You’re strong, Smaug.” Bilbo crouched to keep their foreheads together, “I’m only a baker’s son. I poor soldier and a pitiful dwarf, I can’t do the things you can. I only take advantage of you.”

     Smaug lifted his head gently bringing Bilbo to his feet as he carried him up. “No. You raised me. I couldn’t have done any of those things when those Orcs came after us. You were the one who told me what to do. I was so scared. I was afraid that our family would die. That you would die. But when you began to tell me what to do I knew that we would be safe. I may have the wings, my friend, but you have the heart.

     “I only follow you.”

     Bilbo felt something choking him, a swell of emotions curling tight in his chest. His eyes stung and his head was abuzz with thoughts. “I was afraid, too. I’m still afraid. There will be those who cannot accept you, us. For more than a thousand years dragons have been hunted. And before that they were well known as killers. But you’re not like that. Your kind, and thoughtful, and you take care of us all.

     “I just hope that one day everyone can see you the way I do. You’re my best friend, my brother, and there’s not one soul who could ever replace you.” Bilbo hugged Smaug again, Smaug tilting his head trying to reciprocate the gesture. Bilbo knew what he was trying to do, and he smiled and giggled. “Now, I’ll tell mother and father that I’m staying up here with you. I don’t like it when we’re apart.”

     Smaug nodded his head after Bilbo released him. The dwarfling rubbed the tears out of his eyes and licked his bottom lip nervously. “When I get back, we should go flying again.”

     “Yes!” Smaug replied with barely contained excitement.

 

\--

 

     Thorin Oakenshield had just about enough of that old geezer. His instructor had given the same speech on the economic struggle of Gondor during the famine of Rohan. It was a topic that had been given to him twenty years ago and Thorin thought that his head would explode. Even as a dwarf of majority he was still receiving his tutoring. The marches and trips to the Iron Hills as a child made his education a little uneven. It didn’t matter that Throin would usually bully his tutors into silence when he was a dwarfling, electing to escape to the training halls with Dwalin and Balin.

     But today, he wasn’t getting out of it. Balin had made sure that the young prince would sit and finally listen to how when one ally suffers, they all suffer. Balin explained it like a ripple in a pond if one pebble could disrupt the stillness of the water, imagine what several could do. And what of the leaves that ride those waves? Some sink and others remain afloat. It was all well and good Thorin’s best friend’s brother took his job as advisor seriously, but the prince thought that with Frerin getting older that these types of things would be meant for him.

     “What about when you are sitting in a council meeting and invite a war with the wrong words.” Balin had asked. “That’s more than just a pebbles ripple across Middle Earth.” And as future king Thorin had to have these sorts of things beaten into his thick skull. According to Dwalin.

     Dwalin. How was Thorin’s dwarf doing? Was his training going well? Have they killed eachother yet? Has Bilbo threatened Dwalin? Thorin hadn’t seen one letter from his dwarf since he’d sent his last letter off three weeks ago. Thorin was beginning to worry by breakfast time when he took his meal in his bed. It was always so hard for the prince to be an early riser. He’d rather sleep until midday and work long past sunset than wake early and be done with his chores by late evening. But it was a price to pay for training to be a future monarch.

     Thorin was cutting at his deer and rosemary sausage when a footman delivered a letter to him. He’d always thought that carrying one letter on such a large silver platter was overkill. But he couldn’t convince his father to discontinue such traditions otherwise. So, groggy and irritated, Thorin reached for the butter white parchment and untied the wine colored ribbon. The silk was embroidered with a stylized ‘B’ in khuzdul. In his early morning confusion Thorin dismissed the silk ribbon and rolled open the letter.

     _My Dearest Prince,_

     Thorin paused, heart skipping with a painful lurch, and looked down to the bottom to see an unpracticed signature of one _Bilbo Bomburul_. Thorin’s breath left him as he continued onto his letter.

     _Firstly, shame on you for not warning me of Dwalin’s coming. Secondly, I miss you too, with the same enthusiasm you have shown in your last letter. It has been sometime since I’ve found the time to write a corresponding letter to you. And since the raid I haven’t had much time to do anything but rebuild our home and train. Luckily, with my soldiers salary and newly found notoriety, I can finally afford proper housing for my family._

_Dwalin has been, well, not so kind, but fair in my training. There was a slight scare and misunderstanding and after a few words in discussion, has been taken care of. Your cousin assures me that with my training I should be able to get a better pay for my services, but it’s already too much. And with much complaint from my chaperones, my two friends and Dwalin, I am getting less than what a foot soldier from Erebor is getting. But like I’ve said before, my pay now is too much. I have no care for coin or jewels. Only that which you are fervent in giving me, I suppose. I fear I have no say in the matter, though I would be curious at some of the things you’ve listed._

_Smaug and I have been well. We had flown a few days ago outside Moria. It was beautiful. I’d never seen the outside world. But I remembered the gentle warming of the sun, the brightness of the clouds as they burn as if on fire during the sunset. I remembered the breeze on my face. But flying with Smaug had increased the force of the wind to where it stings slightly. I must commission some leatherwork from my uncle’s wife for a saddle and livery._

_My family is doing well, also. We had not experienced great loss from the raid, and I’m more the happier for it. My parent’s have opened another bakery, in the same place where the other one had been. But since the fires and the attacks they had to build a new one. My siblings are able to get a proper education. My friends’ mother has elected to be a governess for them. With her sternness she is able to only tolerate the triplets for a little while before having to leave before wanting to murder them. She’s got silver hair now._

_There’s so much more I wish to write to you about. Reconstruction is underway and with the King’s order we now have more tunnels for a quicker escape. The lower levels of Moria have either been underserviced since their creation or have collapsed many years ago. With the new tunnels Moria will be safe again._

_That’s not to say that there haven’t been recent uprising with Orcs and Goblins now. Their kings seem set on the conquering of Moria for some reason. But the soldiers and Dwalin are confident that we can hold them as long as they have me. But I’m not sure what I can do._

_Regarding your letter to me, I feel the same. The lack of your presence has not waned my love in my heart for you. Rather, it has made me desperate to be better for you. As small as I am I can’t be the dwarf you deserve, but I hope to be one that you can love. Everyday Dwalin gives me instruction on fighting, in the evenings I have tutors on the etiquette of consorts. And I must say I never knew that there was so much ceremony in lifting a fork to eat. How do you keep your build with such dainty moves? Or perhaps it’s only us consorts that must pick at their food just right. Either way, I will starve at every banquet you hold._

_Thinking of our future: it’s frightening. I had never dreamed to find my One in you. You alone as a simple dwarf would have been too much for me. But with your class, skills, and fighting ability I’m not sure I can complement you well. But I will try. Nay, I can do it. I have no doubts in how much I love you, and how much you mean to me. But everything is rather… different as it is now, and the further into the future I get the more I am afraid. But I know everything will be fine._

_Thorin, my dear prince, my One, I cannot wait to truly be yours._

     To Thorin, it seemed like this part was filled in between the lines, as if it were an afterthought or had been smuggled into this letter. But Thorin didn’t care, he knew with chaperones around and a scribe writing this for Bilbo, his One wouldn’t have put that declaration in there. He would have to thank Ori once they met.

     _My deepest regards to your family. I hope you are doing well in whatever a prince does. I cannot wait to see you. Will you visit sometime? Probably not since you are busy inheriting the kingdom but I dream of the day you do come. My parents would like to meet you as I would like to meet your family. It is only traditional. Should I write to the Crowned Prince and Princess? The King and Queen to introduce myself? I fear I don’t know what is protocol. Please instruct me so that I may ingratiate myself better to your family._

_Forever and For Always Yours,_

_Bilbo Bomburul_

_P.S. My name is Ori, I am the scribe whom Bilbo has hired. Please enjoy the illustration I have sent, Your Highness, of Masters Bilbo and Smaug in battle as told to me by soldier’s present._

     Thorin flipped the ivory parchment over and found the illustration on a separate piece. It was inked mostly, blotches where brushes of water dragged across the parchment in the colored ink, making the shine on Smaug’s scales look alight. Gold ink dotted his scales too, creating such depths otherwise unknown to Thorin. Smaug’s fire was colored the same way with charcoal smudges where orcs were burned and smoke rose. They were flying through the cavernous halls, crowds of dwarves etched in mild detail. The curl of Smaug’s tail looked like he could whip Thorin’s hands when he touched it. But most importantly, was Bilbo’s face as he roared his battle cry. On the bottom of the illustration was the title, _Dragonscreamer on Smaug_.

     Dragonscreamer. Thorin’s Dragonscreamer. Thorin’s One.

     “Your Highness, His Majesty has summoned you to the treasury.” A footman clicked his heels smartly and made his exit.

     Thorin grumbled as he was dressed by a servant and marched out of his chambers. More and more often his grandfather was spending time in the treasury planning expansions for a new thread of gold that had been exposed. But even the prospect of his grumpy grandfather’s mood couldn’t sway him from his elation. Images of Bilbo Dragonscreamer atop his dragon Smaug bid him to weave fantasies that would distract him the whole day.

     His One was stronger and braver than he let on. And he knew that Bilbo would do well at his side as King Consort.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHhhhh! New chapter!


	6. Please Surrender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been three years since Bilbo had last seen Thorin. Has his love waned? Has his attentions to Thorin become any less? No, they haven't, but one surprise guest is doggedly trying to get Dragonscreamer to confess himself.

   
The few days following, after sending off the letter to Thorin, Bilbo found himself inexplicably busy. What with his new lessons in etiquette, trade, manners within the court, court hearings, court processes, the conceivable abilities and duties delegated to the Prince (as he would be called once Thorin takes the throne and after their marriage) in peace time, the conceivable abilities and duties delegated to the Prince in war time; the list was endless. The studies were taxing and caused Bilbo to sneak out of his studies and find solace in the sky with Smaug. They learned how to become a better fighting pair whilst flying. They practiced tumbling, rolling, dropping onto targets, and finding out how far they could fly up before Bilbo ran out of air and when Smaug got too cold. That part was wonderful, but when he touched back down it was back to: Don’t bend at the waist. Don’t courtesy like a dame. Don’t chew with your mouth open. Sit up straight. Don’t slouch. Don’t do this, do that, and never do this. It was all very aggravating. 

Thorin had laughed at Bilbo, saying: “This is not all new to me, my love. Imagine eventually having guards follow you to the privy just to ensure you hadn’t disappeared from your lectures.” Bilbo then counted his lucky agate that he hadn’t gotten that treatment yet. 

The days had passed, seasons had changed from cold mining halls to freezing depths of chasms. It was the third winter since the orc raid and Bilbo was stuck in front of his reflection gauging how quickly he could get out of his formal wear once the banquet was over. 

“You look like a pin cushion.” Ori said from his over-stuffed seat within the Lord’s hall. Ori had his elbows on his knees, hands holding his head up as he snickered and teased Bilbo while he was measured and poked into a handsome red velvet undercoat. 

“I feel like a pin cushion.” Bilbo snapped out as the tailor poked him, yet again, in the wrist. 

“You move, Master Bilbo, you bleed.” The dottering old tailor said between clenched teeth. Bilbo was told that he broke his jaw as a dwarfling causing him to always have his mouth clenched lest he feel too much pain. He didn’t care, because all he was interested in was getting out of this over-heated room in these over-luxurious clothing and into a nice pair of leathers. Leather, as Bilbo was aggrieved to find out, was his uniform until he was graduated to full soldier; which wouldn’t be any time soon considering his future with the young prince. He hated the smell of sweat and leather. 

“Perhaps, then, if I do a jig, I’ll bleed out and spend the rest of my happy Durin’s Day in the healing rooms. Rather than being trussed up like a child’s doll.” Bilbo almost growled. It was very unbecoming of him. But, then again, when your best friend and rookery-mate is a dragon, you can’t help but pick up dragonish traits. 

“Durin’s Day is a blessed time of year, Master Bilbo,” The tailor said, “Your betrothed would be happy to know you’ve spent it well in his family’s name.”

“I’d rather spend it with him alone.” Bilbo retorted smartly. To that, he did actually start bleeding from his fingertip, compliments of the tailor. 

“His Majesty will not take kindly to that type of talk.” The tailor warned. 

Bilbo wanted to keep smarting off, but a certain warrior entering the chamber made him hold his tongue. After all, Dwalin has been particularly edgy these past few days. 

“You look like a pin cushion.” Dwalin said. 

“Ha!” Bilbo looked down at the tailor crowing. 

“It’s traditional for the betrothed, who has not come out to the public might I add, to dress as conservatively as possible.”

“Does tradition mention smothering him with his own clothes?” Dwalin asked, looking as if he was going to run from the pillow of clothing that was Bilbo. 

“Told you it was too much,” Bilbo tried to argue. 

“I won’t have any of it,” The tailor pressed on.

Dwalin had come to escort Bilbo to the banquet, as he had the past two years. Ori was still under the protection of his brothers, but tonight, had finally been given the go ahead to dance with his intended. “We’ll still be watching.” Nori had said. And Dwalin took it to heart. 

The food, as it has been the last two years, was excellent. There was roasted rabbits, potatoes of different sorts, sides of ham, venison roasts, fresh baked bread (not Bilbo’s parents’), a whole boar on a spit, and various turnips and rutabaga’s, all of it hearty food for a hearty people. But Bilbo was content to eat only a little of everything, instead of overindulging like most of the other guests. It sickened Bilbo when there was enough food at one banquet than there was for the lower echelon of people in one year. 

“Come now, Master Bilbo, have a piece of this cutlet.” A guest has boasted in front of some Iron Hill’s that he knew the Dragonscreamer. Bilbo smiled politely, no beard yet, and gave the guest’s acquaintances a firm “No thank you.” 

“Master Bilbo, is it true you have a dragon?” a Lady asked. Bilbo screamed internally as a usual round of questions arrived. 

“I have a friend that is a dragon, yes.” Bilbo smiled again, tight and hurting his own cheeks. He could feel the venison stew stir in his belly uncomfortably. The older couple smiled and tittered.

“Why, boy, however did you catch him? Hadn’t your Amad and Adad told you to stay away from dragons?” The dwarrow asked. Bilbo was about to snap, it was bad enough that his clothing was far too big on him and not flattering in the least. 

“They had told me to stay away from uncivilized creatures, yes.” Bilbo picked up his goblet from the table he was still sitting at, “Have a lovely evening,”

Dwalin sputtered at Bilbo’s comment and followed the young dwarf through the throng of drunk dwarrows and dwarrowdams.

“You do know that that was Lord Dain and his wife, right?” Dwalin asked.

“I don’t care who they are. They should mind their tongue when speaking of Smaug and I,” Bilbo sniffed just like he’d seen a regent do earlier to a cut of meat not to his liking. “Just because they’re rich and related to the royal family doesn’t exclude them from something my own poor parents taught me. Manners.” 

“You just can’t talk to Lords and Ladies like that. You are of lower birth, you have to give them respect.” Dwalin tried stealing a mug of ale from a passing servant.

“I’ll say what I want, when I deem it necessary.” Bilbo turned around and took the mug from Dwalin’s hands before he could take his first real gulp. The warrior glared at the dwarfling. “Those who don’t have the sensibilities to consider the ramifications of offending a dragon should know that they must take the consequences of dealing with his friend.”

“Lord Dwalin, Master Bilbo, a pleasure,” a beautiful dwarrowdam walked up to the arguing pair and before Dwalin could do anything she continued, “I have heard everything under the sun about you, Master Bilbo. Would you mind a few moments with me while my husband cozies up to Lord Darrogh?”

“Not really, My Lady.” Bilbo hesitated. He was feeling more and more agitated as the night wore on. Dwalin was sputtering yet again behind him. “Honestly, if I could only get out of this banquet I could spend it with my family.”

Bilbo pulled at his collar attempting to get a bit of fresh air and looked around at the banquet hall for the first time tonight. The dark marble lit with torches illuminated the room with a yellow pallor from the flames. It made the hall look cozier than it was. Lords and Ladies from all over the kingdom had shown up this day. Bilbo saw Dwarrows making fools of themselves with their ales, Lady’s gossiping about the other dwarrowdam’s clothing choices, and single dwarves looking longingly in his direction. Not that he paid them any mind, he had his intended waiting for him to hurry and grow up. 

“Are your family not here?” The Lady looked confused. Bilbo noticed, for the first time, that she had beautiful black raven hair, silken and braided in a thousand braids and twisted into a complicated bun, some of her free flowing hair trailed down the length of her back. She had on a near matching crushed red velvet dress with dangling gold beads and topaz glittering like stars around her neck. It was a far cheaper looking necklace than other Lady’s who wore their best rubies, emeralds, and other fine gems. But topaz seemed to compliment her darker skin, her freckles on her chest and the sharp nose that looked familiar. 

“Nay, My Lady,” Bilbo bowed, showing the first bit of respect in all of the night. Dwalin huffed out a mead smelling exhale. “They are at home celebrating in their own way.”

“I see,” She smiled impishly, suggesting that she knew something he didn’t. He’d seen those eyebrows before, hadn’t he? “Such a shame they couldn’t make it here tonight.” 

“Oh, My Lady, they weren’t invited.” Bilbo replied. She looked shocked and Bilbo wondered why she would even care, it was taking so much out of Bilbo to remain a fastidious speaker that he realized he could have answered her differently. But the truth was the truth, manners be damned (in this case anyhow).

The Lady took a sip of her drink and hummed, “So Lord Dwalin is accompanying you tonight is he? How do you find him?”

“Annoying,” Bilbo answered immediately, “Most times. He’s a great instructor but he’s shite at other things.”

“Such as?” Now Bilbo felt as if he were on trial. He narrowed his eyes and looked over the Lady again. The set of her eyebrows, her sharp nose, black hair, all seemed familiar to her, but her steel blue eyes and small mouth threw him off too much to make any sort of connection. 

“I’m sorry, My Lady, but I don’t see any reason why I should divulge you. I hardly know you.” Bilbo took half a step back from her and nearly running into Dwalin in the process, who was chugging his ale quickly.

The Lady raised one eyebrow, crooked more like it, and the corner of her mouth rose. She tilted her head up, topaz necklace lost in her ample cleavage, but Bilbo wasn’t even tempted by that length of neck, the light smattering of beard or the tempting curl of her sideburns. She was beautiful, but she wasn’t anything that Bilbo was attracted to. She opened up her painted mouth and let loose a laugh.

“He told me you’d be suspicious.” The Lady extended her hand as if Bilbo was going to take it and kiss it like all the other ladies expected him to. To grovel at their beauty and their magnificence, little did they know that he’d already seen the most beautiful and magnificent dwarf in all the realm. And he was home in Erebor celebrating Durin’s Day with his family. But, being the student that he was, took her gracious hand and kissed it lightly, barely a brush of lips against her heavily ringed hand. “I am Nalbin, Daughter of Drorshek, wife to Thrain.”

“So you are Thorin’s mother,” Bilbo looked surprised. He shouldn’t have been surprised, he’d reimagined Thorin’s features for the last three years, and he should have known them anywhere. But he hadn’t really seen him in Princess Nalbin. “Huh, no wonder Dwalin was choking on his words just earlier.”

“Yes, he seemed intent on letting you know of my identification.” The Lady smiled impishly again. Bilbo half hoped that Thorin had picked up this family trait and what it would look like on him. “But, alas, you are a smart dwarfling, my dear.” 

“I only speak my mind.”

“And aren’t afraid of it.” The Lady complimented him, and it was a compliment. Dwalin had told Bilbo how the royal family, Thrain especially, prized bravery. “I can see now, how you have seduced my son, so.” 

Bilbo furrowed his eyebrows. Though he hadn’t changed his demeanor the Princess had subtly changed. Her look slightly colder, no, judging, she was judging Bilbo right now. A spark of fury lit in his chest and Bilbo felt his neck prickle painfully at the spike of energy. His covered ears burned underneath his loose hanging braids, and were he wearing bells like most spouses or betrothed, they’d be ringing with anger too. All his life he’d been lucky to escape the scrutiny of the upper class, he’d been able to hide within the slums of the lower class, the mining class, and the bakers and butchers and other tradesmen. Little do the educated and the rich understand, was that if the tradesmen all decided to leave at once, their shinning little mountain would crumble into useless rubble. 

It wasn’t the rich or the royals who were the backbone of a mountain, it was people like him, the soldiers, the bakers, and the traders, they made the clothes, mined the jewels, and were the master smiths of ore. Would the Princess know how to make her morning meal? And would the King know which berry to choose for his wine? Probably not. But Bilbo knew the difference between arrow root flour and wheat flour. He knew how long to brew ale and which cut of meat was best for a dragon. 

“Seduce is such a nasty word, Your Highness,” Bilbo paid her the same amount of respect he would anyone. In fact, his mother gained more respect than anyone else in this mountain, only because she knew how to throw a spoon just right that it hit him between the eyes every time. “I hadn’t meant to catch anyone’s eyes, that night, let alone your son’s.”

“And I’m sure you were just minding your own in a tavern full of soldiers who’ve reached their majority.” Her words had found an edge that Bilbo didn’t like. 

“Of course I was.” Bilbo didn’t offer anything else. The Princess tilted her head off to the side as Smaug was used to doing, as if he were sizing you up to swallow you whole; which, sadly, he’s done to a few unsuspecting goats already. Her gaze burned brightly against the torchlight in the hall, hungry like a cat sitting next to a bird cage. “I work for the tavern master, I bake him breads for his kitchen and am at his request for cakes and other treats for special occasions. I was there that day collecting my payment.”

“Such a fine cover, I’m sure.” The princess replied with no heat or coldness, just a neutral observation. 

“Think of it as you may, Your Highness, but it is the truth, for I have no reason to lie.” 

“Surely you do, if you have bewitched my son with your wiles.” Nalbin measured Bilbo up again, “I’ve heard of your type, coming to the taverns in hopes to ensnare the unsuspecting. I’m sure you were salivating at the chance to wrap your greedy hands around my son and exploit him for his riches.”

“I have not asked for a penny from him, my lady.” Bilbo wanted to shout, to curse and to chase her away from him. But he must be the utmost in civility, if not for her sake than for his. “More often than not I have to dissuade him from increasing my pay here as a soldier. I don’t care for coin, or jewel, or whatever other riches your family is entitled to, m’lady. My only interest in your son is his eyes.”

The princess took a step back, cradling her drink close to her breast, corduroy and ribbons tightening around her chest causing her to almost spill out of her carefully tightened dress. “His eyes?”

“Yes, Your Highness, his eyes.” Bilbo took her moment of speechlessness to attack. “He’s got the most brilliant set of eyes, a likeness to you, now that I’ve met you. He’s seen so much on the battlefield, I’m sure, but he still had a gentleness to him that drew me to him, he approached me with a curiosity that I tried to dissuade him from. I had affronted him, his dress, his status, and his sensibilities and yet he continued. I suspected him at first a soldier, then officer, never had he given me his name and I hadn’t a copy of his likeliness that I couldn’t have imagined that the dwarf who had accused me of being younger than I was and had offended my strength. No, Your Highness, I didn’t intend to ensnare, entrap, bewitch, lure, tempt, or possess your son on any level. But his eyes had bewitched me, with its cold colors that warmed me from my over-large feet to the top of my head. Your son, My Lady, has bewitched me, body and soul, and I’m afraid, judging by his letters, that he won’t give it back no matter how hard I beg him to.

“So, forgive me, My Lady, if I spit on your accusations of me. But you had been warned of my tongue and wit, I’m sure, so it should come as no surprise when I take my leave. Goodnight, may you be blessed this Durin’s Day, as your family before you have flourished, so shall you, granted.” 

Bilbo parted with the common blessing on Durin’s Day, and made his slow way through the crowds of people trying to catch his attention and pull him into conversation. “Dragonscreamer! Dragonscreamer! Dragonscreamer!” It all got rather tiring. He hadn’t asked to constantly be the center of attention. He hadn’t asked for Smaug to come to him disguised as a quartz rock. He hadn’t asked for the attack from orcs that lent aid to his earned name. No, he hadn’t asked for any of it. But if he could ask for one thing, it would be,

 

“Please don’t let her behead me.” 

\--

Dwalin pushed his way through the throngs of people trying to claw at his young charge, pushed gently, plowed gently, stomped gently on feet, it just so happens that his definition of gentle contained all the grace and tenderness of a charging bull blindfolded through a crowd. People moved to get out of Dwalin’s way as the hoard tried to crowd Bilbo. 

When they left the princess, Dwalin gave a smart bow and followed the dwarfling, earning a knowing wink from Thorin’s mother. Dwalin knew that she was only testing Bilbo, and it would have gone longer had Bilbo not been able to make his not-so-polite way from Nalbin. The raven haired, blue eyed dwarrowdam laughed, tinkling as it was for her sturdy build, and Dwalin shivered at the joy of listening to such a beautiful and clear voice. He remembered her singing to Thorin and he when they were nothing but hairy little bairn crawling along the floors, it was some of the sweetest times that Dwalin remembered. Walking away from the person he could easily call mother Dwalin realized that Bilbo hadn’t thought of the fact that Nalbin was testing the dwarfling. She was testing his civility and social interactions. After all, she didn’t know that Bilbo was prone to cursing, throwing things at people to get them to back away from him, outright spitting when he was pinned, Bilbo was a dirty, scrappy little fighter and he was more vicious because of it.

Many soldiers took Bilbo’s height for granted, he could move more swiftly between one of the dwarfs strike and another that most couldn’t track the little beastie. Bilbo moved with a type of solidity that was rare in their species. In a dwarf’s species that is. 

Dwalin had heard Bilbo’s origin stories, he’d wondered, for many weeks until then, if Bilbo was actually a dwarf gone hairless in some areas and furry in others. The son of Bombur hadn’t any sort of scruff coming about his chin, nor did he have any impressive sideburns, moustache, or eyebrows. Everything about him was dainty, except for his hidden strength. One look at Bilbo and one would assume that the dwarfling was such a stick of a dwarf that would break the sooner you blew on him. But what surprised Dwalin the most was how he hid his strength. Sure, Bilbo was still having a difficult time with some of the heavier weapons, but the slighter ones he excelled at greatly. His swordsmanship was finally spot on, some of the bigger moves were too much for Bilbo’s height, but he was accomplished everywhere else. His knife wielding was deadly, his spear throwing most accurate, and his feet were light enough without his boots that no one could hear the brat sneak up on them when Bilbo decided to play Shadow Stepping. 

Smaug himself was improving too, not that Dwalin was an expert in dragons, but of what he’d remembered of Throin explaining Smaug in the wyrms infancy, the dragon now seemed intimidating at best. The dragon stood twice as tall as Bilbo when he stretched his legs, and he was almost ten lengths of Bilbo from snout to tail. Dwalin remembers him being half that size and imagined the dragon couldn’t have been that strong of a flyer when they had come up against the orcs. But he’s seen their areal stunts and could only sing praises of their improvements. Dwarf and dragon were truly one. The only thing that could ever be cause for concern is the time away from another the two spent, because if Bilbo or Smaug were away for too long they tended toward the feral. That reaction alone was what Dwalin accounted for Bilbo’s short temper today.

“Bilbo,” Dwalin called out just before the rookery doors.

“Don’t think that I’m going to go back and apologize to that woman. Princess, mother or not she shouldn’t be able to talk like that.” Bilbo slammed his fist against the stone wall, Dwalin could see naked anger on the boy’s face. “I hate it when people talk down to others, as if they don’t matter. That’s why I don’t like you royals!”

“Thorin’s a royal.” Dwalin interjected calmly, used to Bilbo’s bursts of anger after three years. 

“He isn’t like the rest.” Bilbo paused. “He’s not like them. He smart, strong, and he doesn’t treat others as if they’re just offal on the bottom of your boot.” Another strike against the wall, Dwalin was afraid that Bilbo would break his knuckles at this rate, again. “I don’t quite care for their flippancy.”

“Perhaps you should calm down, Bilbo.” Dwalin put his hands out in front of him as if it would protect him. “Imagine walking in there like this, Smaug wouldn’t like it and you’d set yourselves into a fit.”

Bilbo looked towards the taller dwarf as if he were mad. Set themselves into a fit? Who does this dwarf think he is? Making assumptions that Bilbo had a short temper that couldn’t be tamed. Why he was dragon-friend and there was no one in this kingdom or the next or in the free lands that could keep Bilbo Dragonscreamer from what he wanted to do. And if he’d wanted to crush those who’d offended him then there was nothing they could do about it. Wait, crush? Who would think of doing such things? 

“You’re right,” Bilbo said, angry still. The youth took a deep breath in and exhaled sharply, a couple of repititions and Bilbo was lightheaded enough to empty out his thoughts. He was slowly calming down. “You’re right,” Bilbo repeated. 

“And perhaps,” Dwalin edged, he wasn’t afraid of Bilbo when he got like this, but he was afraid of the dragon on the other side of the door that had already threatened Dwalin’s livelihood more than once. “If you shed your horrendous clothing, you’d feel better too. You’ve got enough layers to stay modest and warm in there.” 

Calmer now, Bilbo looked down on himself and nodded his head in agreement. “I am wearing too much.” And the youth begun stripping himself of unnecessary layers. Dwalin blushed slightly when Bilbo accidentally flashed his under clothes. It wasn’t that Dwalin wasn’t unused to seeing another dwarrows underthings, but the fact that Bilbo was under majority and both males were spoken for Dwalin’s modesty had swelled to near prudish heights. Bilbo caught his blush and apologized for his lack of awareness. “I feel better now.”

Smiling Bilbo entered the rookery and took in his surroundings. There were a couple of bonfires to keep the airy room warm, Smaug lay, still and curled in on himself some distance away from a fire, his family gathered around both piles of flame and Ori and his small family milled about visiting with that person or the other. Dwalin shot off expectedly enough when he caught sight of a short, ginger-haired boy. Bilbo laughed at the love they showed another, a familiar pang in his heart dragged his mood down. How he longed to have those moments with Thorin. 

“Not too long now.” Bilbo conceded. Five more years and they can finally be together, “If the princess doesn’t kill you first.” Bilbo’s shoulders drooped in defeat. Shaking off the thought of doom he bypassed his family and made his way to his most precious. 

When he came up to Smaug the poor dragon was wide eyed with fear and still from it. He didn’t seem to even be breathing. Startled, Bilbo approached his brother quickly, “What’s wrong?”

“The triplets were just here,” Smaug barely let out through his teeth, “with Nori.” 

Bilbo shivered from newly found horror. Ever since Ori and his brother’s began coming around more and more, Nori had taken it upon himself (whenever he was around) to teach Laz, Biuri and Doka the finer points of sneakiness. Not to mention that more of Bilbo’s possessions end up missing. “Where are they?” 

“They were on my back, but I don’t feel them now,” Smaug would have shivered if he were capable of movement. As it was, he seemed to understand how important it was to not goad the triplets and teacher any further than their passing curiosity. Like a cat passing a mouse, watching, daring, waiting but not threatening. Laying lazily in the sun while the mouse ate in silence, but with even the slightest twitch of ear from the mouse, the cat could pounce. It reminded Bilbo of how Smaug was his first few months as a hatchling. 

Careful of making any sudden movements himself, Bilbo climbed on top of his fearful friend. "I don't see anyone around, Smaug." Bilbo came back to Smaug's lifting head, he straddled one of his spine ridges and made himself as comfortable as he could. Bilbo could now feel Smaug shaking underneath him finding it not so entertaining that his very large dragon friend was more afraid of three little dwarflings than a horde of orcs. "Wherever they are, brother, they aren't here."

 

"That's what worries me. I don't appreciate not knowing where they are. You know that they get up to more trouble when we don't know where they are and what they're doing." Smaug and Bilbo looked around the room roaring with chatter, laughter, and the crackle of a bonfire. There wasn't anything that Smaug could immediately see, but there was also very many shadowy places Ori's questionable brother, Nori, and the triplets could be.

 

Bilbo had taken the time to look down at the group of families that were gathered around. Instead of strategic milling around and bureaucratic gossiping that just made Bilbo's head spin at the degradation of Moria's finest. They were worse than that dwarfling from down the way from him who kept telling everyone that he was a curse sent by Melkor but then turn around and want to take him to his families own Durin Day celebrations. It was such a two-faced thing to do that Bilbo afterwards disregarded the lad completely afterwards. But now he had to deal with him as a hero-worshiping fanatic after the battle with the orcs those years ago. Bilbo's family though, took their time to well wish and compliment on the past year's productivity. Their small bunch of lower leveled dwarves and dwarrows were so much better for Bilbo than the higher society that liked to cleave to him.

Ori's family, his two brothers and mother, were blending right in with Bilbo's substantially larger family. It made Bilbo smile when his own father and his brother and cousins would joke about something that one had done last week or forty years ago, or when his mother and aunts would get together and complain about their husbands, or how the dwarflings would run around reenacting the battle of Azanulbizar. The most important thing that made Bilbo happy was the inclusion of his son, his brother, Smaug had been given well wishes just as he gave them in return. The inclusion of his most important friend and family member was what Bilbo enjoyed most of all about the "lower rung" of society. They cared more about the individuals rather than the people he had just left in the Lord's great hall.

"Bilbo!" Dwalin called from below, "Ye got a guest here."

Confused, Bilbo peered over Smaugs head, the dragon angling down to see who it was too. Who stood near Smaug's closed wings surprised them both.

"Princess Nalbin." Bilbo breathed, a cold panic settled in Bilbo's belly like ice. "Oh, I'm going to die."

"What? Why?" Smaug tilted his head to look at the dam closely, "Who is she, Bilbo?"

"That's Thorin's mother." Bilbo wanted to hide behind the length of horn that was half as tall as he was. "I wasn't very nice to her earlier."

"Hard to imagine that, papa." Smaug didn't lower his head just yet for Bilbo to get off, "You're quite, erm, acerbic, with most people. But she must have deserved it if it's Thorin's mother."

"You do know she can hear you." Bilbo patted Smaug's head to be lowered down.

"Don't care, she can't hurt me." Smaug smiled smugly.

"She can eventually send the triplets after you." Bilbo was let down and was able to feel Smaug shiver in fear. "Greetings, Your Highness." She was wrapped in thick wolf furs instead of her luxurious red velvet dress from earlier. The princess had followed Bilbo and Dwalin to the rookery, or Dwalin had told her where they were going. Bilbo knew that Dwalin and Thorin were close so he assumed that Dwalin knew Thorin's mother too. "What a lovely surprise."

"Surprise, yes. Though I doubt how lovely you feel it is." She had a little knowing smirk that revealed a small dimple in her cheek. Dwalin stood next to her, lacking his ale, and stood solemnly next to another dwarrow who was smartly at attention just behind the princess. "I was curious, Dragonscreamer, why it was that your family hadn't been present at the banquet with you."

"Why they weren't..." Bilbo repeated, was she serious? "Well, my lady, I had thought that it would be obvious. My family isn't the cream of the crop, excuse the crude words. But my family wouldn't fit in with a high class society. They are only bakers, of course." Bilbo was so upset with the princess' audacity and ignorance to social class. But, isn't that what she may be here for? Gauging how Bilbo reacts with his education and societal competencies? Bilbo was just now getting to know what the princess was trying to do. "I would like to apologize, Your Highness, about my attitudes towards you. I haven't been treating you fairly nor given yourself the respect you deserve."

"I deserve nothing, Bilbo, if I've been remiss of my own respects towards you." Her dimple increased.

"Nay, princess, I should be spending my time flattering you and your husband, the crowned prince, so that I may have your favor." Bilbo straightened, stiffened, to make himself more presentable and confident.

"I don't believe in groveling, Bilbo, and my husband sure doesn't appreciate false niceties. So you should remember that when you see him. Now, the King is an entirely different animal all together," Nalbin reached out a strong arm for Bilbo to take, as she was taller than him Bilbo tried his best to remember the proper way to lead a lady. He'd fumbled at that simply because he didn't believe that dwarrows could ever get dams to do what the men wanted. Dwarrowdams had their own agenda, his mother made him realize. "The King very much appreciates the groveling, the kowtowing, and observing the long-standing etiquette's of old men."

She giggled, and Bilbo hadn't thought that he'd heard anything so beautiful and pure. She was a lovely lady, and Bilbo could tell that Thorin had been given her good looks. And perhaps Throin has the crowned princes' good nature. Bilbo was still anxious about being "alone" with the princess, unsure of what her true motives were. He'd lead them down the length of Smaug, who was about seventy three feet long from snout to tail tip, and Nalbin couldn't help but marvel at the color of his scales.

"He's magnificent, Bilbo, you did a great job in raising him." Nalbin said carefully, Bilbo could tell that she was gauging his reaction.

"I raised him from an eggling. I've raised him as a son, then the rest of my family joined in and helped raise him too, so he's my brother and my best friend." Bilbo stroked the side of Smaug's belly, warm to the touch, he could feel him breathing through his hand. It always made Bilbo's skin prickle with the intimacy of their bond. "We've been together every day since he'd been born. I couldn't imagine my life without him. He's precious to me in a way that others won't ever be."

"So where would my son fit in? Next to your brother?"

“Just because Smaug is settled firmly in my heart doesn’t mean that Throin can’t possess it still.” Bilbo turned toward the princess again, “As I’ve said, Thorin has stolen more of me than I of him. I may have his heart but who does he have in his? I don’t intend to demean the princes’ integrity of spirit but he won’t know how much a child can fill one’s heart until he has one. Smaug is like my child, I’ve cried with him, bled with him, and during the battle I’ve fallen with him. Our bond has only strengthened while Thorin and I are so far apart, you can’t blame me for giving more attention to my child than a potential husband that I haven’t seen in three years.”

Bilbo wanted to say more, but, admittedly, his head was still spinning with how quickly Nalbin was changing herself. One moment she was a polite stranger, then a testy mother, and now she was an understanding dwarrowdam with just enough of a bite to satisfy her motherly side still. It was cruel the mindgames she was playing. Their conversation ebbed and flowed much like any conversation between two people attempting to get to know the other, with some parts where Bilbo would have like to fly off the handle and turn accusations around and other’s when he was laughing at the stories only a mother would be brave enough to tell about her son.  
Eventually Bilbo realized that princess Nalbin wasn’t all that horrible, now that he’d had been able to talk with her. It seemed that she was only testing his resolve and critiquing his etiquette. Which she never told him if he passed muster or not, she had just smiled and giggled in a way that would be flattering if he wasn’t consumed with thoughts of Thorin. How similar was the princess with her son? It had been so long since he’d last seen Thorin that he wondered if his eyes glimmered just as brightly as hers. Were the sapphire in their eyes the same, different? Bilbo remembers seeing one black fleck in Thorin’s right eye. His voice caused him to quiver and shake whenever the other dwarf had spoken, but the princess was nothing but a pleasure to be around whereas Thorin had his moments of briskness and boldness inherent of royalty that made Bilbo feel defensive. 

“I do hope that your feelings for my son are pure. Talking with you I can see how he had been all but bewitched by you. And you are a gentle dwarfling if not a strange one.” Nalbin hadn’t meant it as an admonishment but was definitely digging for his origins. It was true that his mother hadn’t given birth to him, but he was a gift from Mahal all the same. He made no comment and waited for her to continue. “You carry yourself with all the presence and mindfulness of a true noble, but you are far too humble and have a sharp tongue that I’m sure rivals street urchins and miners – that is to say that you are practiced with words, young one. Your cloths aren’t in tatters much like most folk from the lower halls but I’m sure they are worn well and good. You are a complexity, my dear boy, and I very much wish to unravel your riddles.” There was a wicked gleam in her eyes, one that made Bilbo blush with nervousness and flattery all the same. “But I will leave that for my son.”

Was she really suggesting… no. Princess Nalbin was married and not interested in lowly, young dwarflings like himself. Had he not been preoccupied with thoughts of his physical strangeness rather than the queerness of his personality Bilbo was sure that he would be sputtering like a virgin on his wedding night. Except that he wasn’t afraid to speak of sex or the intricacies regarding the functions between lovers. He does have a miner uncle who likes to “educate” Bilbo when drunk. Quickly, and without blubbering like a fish, Bilbo thought of his answer.

“Your Highness, I would say I’m flattered, but I’m afraid that would be a lie.” Of course, that in itself was a lie. He wasn’t above himself to admit when he thought that attention from a potential dwarf was acceptable, but it was the fact that she wasn’t a potential that made the thought of stepping out before he was ever in with Thorin that gave him pause of tongue and flattery. “You are stunning in your own rights, and your questions of my loyalties are understandable and just. But please be assured if not for your son than for our prince that I would never tarnish the sanctity of our future union. I do hate to assume so early, but I am hopeful that you find me a pleasant enough addition to your family.” Knowing that she would find it more a hilarity than offense, Bilbo made a grand and graceful bow that bent him in half. He gave her a wink and a smirk and he was given a pretty blush. 

Where had this silver tongue come from? Not even with Thorin or any other dwarf had he been gifted with these words. Perhaps the Valar were blessing him and giving him extra luck in wooing the parents of a prince. 

“Bilbo, with those words you only flatter yourself and your intelligence.” Nalbin stepped closer to Bilbo, “And I do admire that within a dwarf.” Her eyes were gleaming with a different kind of mischief that Bilbo could agree with, and feel comfortable with in replicating, “Thorin is going to have his hands full with you, that much is for certain. He’s got a gift of tongue but with your charming face and beautiful braids he will be falling over himself to cherish and laden you with jewels and precious metals.”

“Well then, I aim to disappoint. I’m not in it for the rubies and gold. His heart is all I need.” Bilbo said more softly, but the confession made Nalbin’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. Of course, Bilbo knew that all dwarves treasure gold and jewels, but he was telling the truth. If, Mahal forbid, Erebor fell to some calamity, Thorin’s heart would be all that Bilbo desired. “Your Highness,”

A klaxon of bells and bellows of horns shook the rookery. All conversations and merry making stopped as ears strained for a herald. But the sound of leather feet slapping stone and a terribly familiar warble caused Bilbo and all in the room to pause and shiver.

“Orcs.”

\--

It was happening again and Bilbo couldn’t quite believe it. There was instant and intense panic that rose in the airy, cold room. It was as if all the good cheer and warmth escaped the room in one quick and ruthless flurry. Children screamed, mothers panicked, and fathers picked up their weapons – or the weapons in the room since this was the Dragonscreamer duo’s living space and training room. Bilbo shivered from memories of the horrors of the last battle he was in. Fear and panic crept into him just the same as the last time, but the paralyzing fear never returned. He knew what he had to do and now he had more courage today to do it.

“Princess,” Bilbo turned to Nalbin, her beautiful black eyebrows (dusted with gold he only now realized) furrowed in concentration and her face was set firm. 

“If you think a princess of our kingdom is going to sit back while orcs invade Moria, your sadly mistaken, lad.” The princess turned on her heel smartly and walked towards Bilbo’s paltry weapon’s training rack. Dwalin and other guards materialized around the princess and pulled out their own weapons to join her. Bilbo thought that the dwarrows were going to attempt to convince their ladyship to stand down and get to safety like his own mother and children were doing, but they only nodded their heads towards her and followed her back to a shocked Bilbo. “You best grab your weapons, Dragonscreamer, there’s orcs to kill.” 

And with little fanfare the princess and her small army moved forward and passed the already evacuating citizens. Bilbo was left with Smaug, not panicking or awestruck, but left, once again, to figure out how to get a dragon to fit through the doors. 

“We’ll figure something out.” Smaug said, already trying to shake the double doors to budge. But they both know it would be useless. The bonfire left lit the room and Bilbo craned his neck to find options for his scaly friend. Then, a snowflake drifted passed Bilbo’s nose and settled somewhere at his feet. 

“I have it.” Bilbo sprinted to Smaug and climbed up his leg that was as wide around as he was and just as long. Bilbo’s saddle and reins were upon the wall next to Smaug, he didn’t have time to strap everything down but the reins could easily be wound around Smaug like a harness, he began to set to work while Smaug stilled to let him finish. “We won’t be left helpless again, Smaug. We’ve got training. We’ve got fire. And we’ve got each other.”

Smaug nodded his head, spikes and horns seeming more lethal and threatening in the dim light and stark shadows than ever before. A deep tremble of a growl, unique to Smaug, began rising in noise, and Bilbo unconsciously found himself repeating and following, answering in his own growl. Bilbo’s fingers shook and fumbled in anticipation. His head swam with the thought of conquering and killing his foes. His stomach twisted with hunger. And maybe he should have paid more attention to his sudden and strong desire to consume, to tear and rip and mutilate with teeth but his whole concentration had been to cinch the reins so he wouldn't fall and gathering his weapons to fight.

“We've got each other, father.” It was the first time in years that Smaug had called Bilbo by that name. And a surge of pride and protection swelled inside of him just as hungry as his ignored blood lust. “We’ll win this again, for Moria.”

“For Moria.” Bilbo answered with the same amount of surety of his dragon-son. He climbed back upon the back of his beloved, on the back of his best friend, his brother, and his son, hefted his sword in his hand and gripped the reins in his other. Smaug stood on his back legs and flapped his wings in preparation for flight. Bilbo will regret not having all of his training armor on, but regret was for later. Right now, they had a battle to win. But first, to get out of the rookery and into the lower levels where klaxons and horns hadn’t stopped sounding and bellowing in a call for flight and fight.

\--

“…They had said that he rides on Melkor’s beast, ferocious and determined to vanquish his foes. He cuts down his enemies as if he’d been born to war, the veterans hail him as the best of his generation, and others look up to him and his dragon companion with admiration and respect. Bilbo Dragonscreamer has, in my eyes, proven himself worthy of the title of prince consort. His knowledge can only grow from here, as such as his skill in fighting. 

“Your grandson, and thus our kingdom, can only benefit from this union.” Princess Nalbin bowed before the king, his hair finally white with age, the handsome and fierce king sat stoic in his throne. 

To the king’s left would have sat his wife, but sickness had claimed her many years ago, and to his right was his heir, crowned prince Thrain, standing behind him was prince Thorin. The younger prince looked to his mother with pride shining brightly in his eyes, his stance had grown taller since she’d begun her report. He hadn't received any letters from Bilbo about the most recent battle, even by raven the letter would have only beaten his mother by a day. And even if Bilbo had written a letter about the battle, the dwarfling would have only left out the best parts about Bilbo’s success in battle. That dwarf was too humble.

King Thror sat on his throne, beard glistening with his adornments, rings flashing on his weathered hands, beady eyes bright with a newly found lust. Lady Nalbin stood her ground against the pensive king, wondering herself about the fate of her son. 

“It would only be fair to Lady Dis for her eldest brother to be married before her. But with this dwarfling, Bilbo son of Bombur, not yet ready for marriage for six more years, it seems that would be particularly cruel to her.” Thror’s voice rumbled through the stilling air. The entire kingdom had, these past few years, become accustomed to the fact that the prince would be courting a commoner from Moria. And with more and more stories of Bilbo Dragonscreamer reaching the ears of the mead halls and taverns, the more and more the populace come to love the young Dragon Tamer (as he had been ranked by drunk soldiers). Thorin, like the rest of the hall, kept still at his grandfather’s verdict. “Albeit, this young lad has shown his worth to his kingdom I am unsure of his worth as a companion to the future king of our people.”

The attending crowd broke down in hushed murmurs, some agreeing with the king. Who is this son of a baker who thinks he can wear the title of prince? Other’s disagreed, wanting to see a beloved soldier rise above the others, especially one as talented and strong as Dragonscreamer. 

“Have you a portrait to give me?” The king asked of his son’s wife. 

“No, Your Majesty.” Princess Nalbin replied, “his family are traditional in their beliefs and won’t allow a painting done until his coming of age.”

The king laughed lightly, “I like his family already.” Thror paused, stroked the chair’s arm with his meaty and scarred fingers, “But I cannot condone the union without first meeting Bilbo Dragonscreamer first. Because he is still a dwarfling and his family traditional (as it should be) I will wait until his day to call upon him. Until such a time prince Thorin will be expected to court a dwarrowdam to secure the line of the Durin name. If Dragonscreamer is accepted and married it will be his right and expectation to approve of the union of the prince and the concubine. This is so.” 

Thror had spoken, and Thorin, as outraged as he was that he couldn’t begin courting the only dwarf he could ever love, had to hold his tongue and accept the terms of the king. Though Thorin and Thrain had worried just three days prior of the time that the king spent in the ever growing treasury, they could not challenge the king’s ruling even if he were distracted by the gleam of his rings. 

Thorin would only have to bow his head and obey for as long as Thror was king, and Thrain had shown a comical if not unveiled interest in the prospect of their marriage. Thorin had shared with his father the stories he’d heard from taverns and friends, and read to him the less personal parts of Bilbo’s letters. All Thorin had wanted was to be given the blessing of his grandfather and king to begin courting his future husband. But with Thror becoming more distracted by his hoard the darker the days had seemed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally here! I'm sorry I've taken so long to get this out. I didn't mean to take this long. Now I'm off to update Sunshine and Eternity... respectively.


	7. The Hammers and The Anvils

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo learns of integrity... right after a talk about the hammers and the anvils. And a little more Smaug. And Ori's filthy... bad, wicked, naughty, Ori.

_A sweet smell clogged his nose, as if it were syrup filling his mouth up and dripping down his throat thickly and much too sweet. Though overwhelming he enjoyed it at the same time it irritated him making his head a buzz and his body lighten, as if he could float right out of his bed. He could feel the catches of pollen, the fine dusting of it over his face while his eyes were closed in the warm sun. Nearby, he heard a distant buzzing, and when he opened his eyes to inspect what that sound was he was temporarily blinded by the butter yellow sun filtering through green leaves._

_Bilbo had never seen anything so bright and colorful unless you count his few times outside flying with Smaug, but at those times the sun was dull and hiding behind clouds in the early winter days. The colors, too, surrounding Moria were washed out and with the marsh surrounding the main entrance of the mining city it made the land look dreary. But not this place, this was illuminated with the brightest of greens, purples, reds, yellows, golds, and many other colors Bilbo hadn’t ever seen before but somehow knew existed. It was all in the delicate petals of the flowers surrounding him, the thick, knitted throw over him deflecting against a chilly breeze despite the sunny day._

_In his mind, he lay there, agape and surprised at the amount of details in his strange dream, but physically, he felt his head move, following a fat bee as the size of his little fist which carried a load of pollen. The strangeness melted into familiarity he’d never known. The wide, gated and bush-fenced yard with a little hill and a tall tree above him felt like home. And there was a smell of fresh yeast bread and a distant male humming while a woman sings along in a garden before him. He hears a creak of wicker as he moved to try and look at her and the sound it catches her attention. The woman looked up, honey curls, tight, shining, and beautiful, bounces against her face as she look on him._

_“Hello, looks like you’re awake.” Her smile is bright, warm, and everything he didn’t know he needed. He wanted to cry at the sudden pain of longing it brought him, so he cried. The wailing made her jump up from digging in the dirt, black clumps fell from her lap, her working apron with white daisy’s and sun yellow middle blotched but quaint. “Oh, shush, shush,” she smiled some more, dark eyes glinting with pleasure and a hint of worry, dirty gloved hands making their way toward him before she remembered herself and took them off to rub a finger against his mouth. “It’s okay, mama’s here.”_

_“Is he awake?” the male voice called from inside… somewhere._

 

“Is he awake?” Bleary eyed, Bilbo realized that he heard his father yelling up the landing to Mikhelh who stooped above him looking at him strangely.

 

“Yeah, but he’s crying like a babe,” Mikh laughed and poked at Bilbo’s sore sides.

 

“Stop it,” Bilbo grumped towards his younger brother and felt a longing to snap at Mikh. It was strange, waking up in a bed and not next to Smaug, but the dragon was shedding and needed to thicken his hide with his own flames. And that got interesting when he would try to do that as a sprog. A three meter long dragon attempting to light himself on fire for the first time. The panic, on both ends, when the family tried to drown the wyrm and put him out and Smaug trying to escape them and burn off the excess scales and fur. Thankfully, Moria was near enough to the marshes to not cause such a big grass fire. “I’ll bite you.”

 

“You and Smaug have been spending too much time together.” Mikh said, reaching into his inner tunic pocket for a slim flagon. The drink that his little brother liked burned even Bilbo’s nose.

 

“Why do you drink that?” Bilbo asked, waving a hand in front of his face and pulling on his outer tunics.

 

“It helps me with my pains.” Mikhelh said dryly. Bilbo watched as his brother’s throat worked the burning liquid down his throat and wondered if it actually worked. Mikh had injured himself a few months ago lifting a bag of flour, granted he was still drunk from the day before, but he’d been put to bed for his injuries and was only now able to move around without too much pain. But Bilbo wouldn’t know if alcohol helped, he’d never drunk anything. “By the way, what were you dreaming of? You were crying.”

 

Bilbo looked at his brother quizzically then reached up to touch his face. Sure enough, there was wetness around his eyes. “Oh, uh, nothing, just the usual stuff.”

 

“So you usually cry for no reason?”

 

“No, I-“

 

“Oh! You miss Thorin!” Mikh crowed well leading Bilbo tenderly out into the stone hallway and down to the lower landing where Bombur and Vala were cooking up dinner.

 

“Of- of course I don’t,” Bilbo blushed, he could feel his tipped ears burning as signal of his embarrassment. “After his last letter, I’m glad I don’t have to deal with all this nonesence.”

 

“You mean after you found out that he has to take on a bride first.” Mikh said somberly. The whole family knew that Bilbo had been depressed since receiving his last letter from the Prince of Erebor.

 

The laws weren’t as strict as they have been for generations before, but with Bilbo’s family being one of the old families, Bilbo was forced to follow those old laws. It seemed, as well, that the King had agreed with their decision to keep Bilbo and Thorin from shamelessly flirting and generally being improper with their writing. Thorin’s last letter had been carefully vetted by their royal scribe, as his markings were in the lower corner, and Bilbo’s had been read by Ori, their family’s unofficial scribe.

 

“It’s just so frustrating.” Bilbo made motions with his hand indicating he wanted to choke something, or someone. “I wish we could just marry now and be done with it.”

 

“Ah, but brother, the crunchiest breads often take the longest to make.” Mikh said sagely.

 

“Yes, well, I feel like I’m quite burnt from this all.” And that was the end of the conversation concerning certain princes and laws.

 

Dinner was held with little fanfare and Bilbo couldn’t wait to get to bed and sleep some more.

 

“You sleep well enough, Bilbo, dear.” Vala said from clearing off the table.

 

“Ah, let the lad lay, sweetheart.” Bombur said around his mouthful of leftovers. Bilbo looked over to his ginger haired father and huffed. He began taking in all of what he was seeing from the rotund dwarrow and comparing himself to his father.

 

Sure, of course he wasn’t blood related, he was a blessing from Mahal to his current family, but he often wondered where he belonged. The dream from earlier was stirring questions he was afraid of getting answers to, but they were ones that sat heavy in his heart. Where did he come from? Who were his people, if not dwarfs for sure, then he must be something else that enjoys the ground. He’d seen Men who fidgeted knowing they were so deep inside a mountain, and an elf wouldn’t dare enter such dark and cavernous halls despite how well lit and full of life they were. And, well, what else were there? Perhaps he was a bit of elf and a bit of man, just, shorter. Yes, that was it! He was a shortling. Bilbo scoffed at his silliness, no one had ever heard of a shortling. Why, that was just absurd.

 

“What’s on your heart, son?”

 

“Is it that dream you were crying about?” Adnzenth began to tease him too, but she shrunk under her mother’s stern glare.

 

“Well, it is about a dream.” Bilbo hedged, “But it’s also about… whe- well, where I come from.”

 

“We told you,” Vala interrupted before Bombur could say another word. “We found you-“

 

“Underneath a tree and you thought I was a loaf of bread I was so small, yes I know how you found me. But what am I?” Bilbo asked, exasperated and frustrated all at once. He threw his arms in the air and made to stand and he desperately wanted to throw something in a fit.

 

“You are our son.” Bombur said with weight. “And that’s all that should matter.”

 

“You don’t question Mahal and his blessing, my boy.” Vala followed. “Now, go take these to Dwalin, Creator knows that dwarrow must get bored with the tavern food.”

 

\--

 

The following day Bilbo Dragonscreamer never would have thought that he’d be able to best Dwalin and that he would be able to toss him over slim shoulders and force him to yield. But there the larger dwarf lay wheezing and attempting to roll up onto his feet. Ori laughed somewhere behind them, as it was now his habit following his husband-to-be everywhere when chance allows.

 

It had been two and three quarter years since Dwalin had arrived, ready to beat some military sense into Bilbo and get him bride-groom ready. And now, with the prospect of not marrying Thorin (as Bilbo’s family is refusing to allow more letters to be sent without proper courting) Bilbo’s future was looking more and more bleak. Not to mention the dreams that were becoming more and more frequent and vivid. It was aggravating not being able to share this experience with anyone and with all of his frustration he seemed able to transfer it all to throwing mountain sized dwarves over his shoulder.

 

“Problems today, Master Bilbo?” Dwalin wheezed as he attempted to return to his feet. Bilbo stood there panting, feeling off the whole day since waking up. The elder dwarf shook his head as if a dog would water, and stood to his full height, hoping to intimidate the boy.

 

“No,” Bilbo said, almost vehemently.

 

“If denial had a face,” Dwalin said, dusting off his hands while resuming his grappling stance, “it would have yours.”

 

Between jabs and swipes of feet to put their partner off balance, Bilbo was able to answer back. “I’m not in denial,”

 

“Oh?” Dwalin ducked past a small fist. Regardless of his size, Bilbo’s punches had hurt. The smaller dwarf had finally learned to put his whole weight into his swing in order to make any type of impact on his opponents. “Then a liar, you are.”

 

“Not even that,” Bilbo growled through clenched teeth. The smaller dwarf’s body seemed to glow, as usual, with exertion. His skin became blotched and red and his body became hotter. Today, however, he seemed to be on fire. Two arms lengths away and Dwalin could swear that he could feel Bilbo’s body heat from there.

 

“Enlighten me then.” Dwalin feighnted a jab to Bilbo’s head and followed up with a sweep of leg that would have thrown Bilbo off even one month ago. Today, Bilbo used his light feet and quick, ruthless jabs, and gave a few ‘bee stings’ to Dwalin’s meaty thigh. Dwalin was able to brush it off easily enough, but he knew if Bilbo had been allowed to use a sword today, even a training one, he would be down.

 

“I want to marry Thorin.” Bilbo said, jumping back and out of Dwalin’s wide reach. “But I want to follow my parent’s wish to remain pure.”

 

That threw Dwalin off. Literally. The black-haired dwarf paused, promptly lost his balance, then fell.

 

“You- you mean,”

 

“I wish to court Thorin, yes, but I also have…” Bilbo indicated his nethers, “desires.” It looked like it pained Bilbo to say it, though.

 

“You mean that Thorin isn’t your One?” Dwalin asked, angered himself now. The thought that this low-classed  _child_  could manipulate Dwalin’s cousin like that. Lure him into falling for him and when it seemed that the dwarfling wouldn’t be getting his way, he was ready to cut off all ties. And Thorin had sworn his love to the lad!

 

Dwalin really became enraged after that. He approached Bilbo with his meaty hands ready to pound some sense into the silly dwarfling. Bilbo recognized the temper in the other dwarrow’s eyes and back-peddled quickly, running the opposite direction of the fuming warrior. Somewhere in the training halls Ori gave a sharp chirp of “Dwalin, stop!” but the larger dwarf did not heed his beloved’s call. Dwalin had scented Bilbo like a dog to a bleeding hart.

 

“What?” Bilbo threw up his hands in defense, running from Dwalin. “NO! I mean yes,”

 

“Which is it?” Dwalin’s thunderous yelling caused other warriors and soldiers to eavesdrop, some abandoning their own training in favor of watching Erebor’s favorite warrior rush the Dragonscreamer.

 

“Yes, he is my One!” Bilbo screamed throwing a training sword to deter the dwarrow. But he, again, did not heed any attempts at the distractions. Dwalin cornered Bilbo in a semi-secluded area and had one fist raised in threat. “I need to get rid of it!” Bilbo fell into a fetal position and threw his hands up to cover his face.

 

“Wha-?” Dwalin stuttered, immediately going red in the face.

 

“It hurts, sometimes. And I don’t know what to do.” Bilbo rushed the words as if it were a plea of life.

 

“Oh-“ flabbergasted, Dwalin fell into silence. “Oh!” sudden realization and the request of his charge made Dwalin blush. He hadn’t planned on every having this conversation with the lad, let alone anyone. “And you canne’ ask your father?”

 

“And say what, exactly? How to get rid of this?” Bilbo indicated his trousers again, and although Dwalin made sure not to look too closely, he didn’t see anything incriminating for the lad.

 

“Exactly.” Dwalin insisted. He was avoiding this as much as possible.

 

Bilbo sighed, making a big deal out of his frustration. It would drive Dwalin to anger too if he hadn’t already known how to deal with his own… frustration. For as much as Dwalin wasn’t ready to help explain such adult things with the lad, he realized that the boy was uncomfortable with talking to his own father, ergo, no one to actually ask. And Dwalin wasn’t sure if he could continue to train someone who was constantly distracted by a chub.

 

“Fine, but I’m not talking about it alone with you. We’ll get either your father or-“

“No! Not him, please,” Bilbo begged again. He’d uncurled slightly from his fetal position, making him look even more pathetic and younger than he should be dealing with this. “He always threatens to send us to our uncles when we get that old. Do you know how embarrassing they make things?”

 

Dwalin shook his head, he hadn’t met many of Bilbo’s relatives or had gotten to really get to know the one’s he had. Bofur seemed fine enough, and Bifur had left with the Prince’s army with many of the other soldiers. “They can’t be that bad, laddie.”

 

“Uncle Bofur has Bifur’s wooden dolls for ‘authentication’ and, he gets creative and has told me once that if I’d ever been a bad boy, Grehan would come in at night and steal my dragon… and he didn’t mean Smaug.” Bilbo shivered. The lad had to know that Grehan was like the Potato Lady, a story to scare children into being good. A few friends would authenticate by saying “yeah, I’m related to them” and point out random scary old hags and dwarrows. Balin had always been the most convincing when it came to such stories.

 

“Well, lad, then we can ask either Dori or Nori to help us out. They’re the only other one’s I trust.” Dwalin shifted his gauntlets and lent a hand to Bilbo to help him up. The smaller dwarrow took it, his hands too small for someone his age, too petite and pretty to hold weapons. Maybe the boy should be excelling as a courtier.

 

“You mean because they’ll keep you in line?” Bilbo smirked, now that the danger had faded the two walked out of their area, a natural rock formation kept after the construction for wall climbing. Bilbo knew those rocks well. The onlookers scoffed, collected bets, and returned back to work, the younger ones scuttling quickly after Dwalins’ stern look.

 

“Exactly.”

 

\--

 

 

Bilbo had agreed to meet the brother’s Ri and Dwalin after dinner. But during their family dinner, Bilbo pondered about his latest dream. Ever since the first time four months ago, about the time the Princess Regent  was last visiting Moria, Bilbo’s dreams had gotten clearer and more vivid. The small garden expanded to fields of grass as green as what surrounded the basket he was in. It was as if he could feel the woven fleece under his hands before the slight beating wind of the large bumble bee, and that alone would have been enough. But the image of the woman, whom he now believes is his real mother, swelled his heart to the point that he wakes up crying in loneliness. His dreaming had even begun effecting Smaug too.

 

While the two sleeps in the outgrown rookery, cuddled and curled around another, Bilbo kicks and flails against his scaly brother and the dragon can do nothing but speak low and softly to him. And the more time they fly together, sleep together, and essentially bond, the more they find that the ancient tales of kings speaking in their own tongue to the dragons were true. They’d developed a series of physical cue’s that they took from one another as if spoken language. Something devoted brother’s in arms did, but what really started surprising them, was the fact that one’s emotions seemed to affect the other. When Bilbo woke up scared and crying out Smaug twitched and roared whenever it surprised him, and when Smaug would begin getting angry, even separated, Bilbo found himself reacting the same way.

 

So, when Bilbo began thinking too deeply about his dreams and what he was able to interpret from them – as they never grew in length, only had gotten clearer – Smaug would attempt to relax himself and emulate calm instead of allowing solemnity to affect their emotional connection. Bilbo was thankful of those times, but now he’d wished Smaug would stop teasing him through the connection as he got closer and closer to the Ri household. The streets were exactly the same as when he’d last lived in the lower levels, and no amount of time in the upper levels would make him forget the distinct smells and thrum of energy from her people.

 

The hard working dwarves of Moria were the epitome of stout and hardy people. If ever there were champions of a race, Bilbo would have picked any number of the hard working dwarves down here rather than those from the upper echelon. Though he wouldn’t consider himself biased because of where he’d grown up, even Dwalin had admitted that much as well, but Bilbo really loved that his neighbors, the true grit in your eye workers were what defined dwarves. And out of everything that Bilbo had dreamt and been through, being called not-dwarf and other such things, he was proud to be from Moria. Her mines dug deep, and her halls were full of life and the efforts of everyone’s labors.

 

Walking past the mead halls and deeper into the heart of the mountains, Bilbo walked passed the new construction where, by the King’s orders, new tunnels where being carved out of the stone for escape. But there, right there he could have sworn, was where his wooden house had stood. It had been precariously made of old shipping crates, clapboards, and whatever scrap wood and materials they could find. The upper level, where Bilbo and their parents slept, had cloth walls stretched between upright beams.

 

Bilbo had never thought about the safety of his family until that night, but looking back now, all he could do was wince at the inevitability of the house’s demise. It could have taken anything as little as a shift of stone underneath the shaky foundation for the whole thing to collapse. Now, they had a sturdy homemade of stone next to where other soldier’s families dwelt, overlooking the high ways that lead to the trading halls and deeper to unload their wares to stores deep below.

 

The home had been leveled, much has other homes, including those that had escaped the ensuing fire. But the tunnel brought new hope to Bilbo, fore every step that Moria was taking for her betterment, was a salve to Bilbo’s own soul, knowing that Thorin was the one behind all of it.

 

Thinking of Thorin brought a familiar ache that made him remember the reason why he’d been heading all this way in the first place.

 

He knocked on the door to a small house that sat above a tea shoppe, it was a quaint shoppe and Bilbo had honestly never been down this far to see it, but it was hot and stuffy due to the furnaces nearby and Bilbo didn’t miss that.

 

“Oh, it’s Dragonscreamer.” The elder red-head poked his head out quickly and retreated just as quickly into the small room. “He’s here.” Nori yelled deeper into the small house.

 

“We could tell that.” Dori yelled back then hurried to the door. “Welcome, would you like some tea?”

 

“Please.” Bilbo hadn’t ever had tea before, except when he was sick and a healer brought a stout tea that tasted like donkey piss.  

 

Tea served and coats hung Bilbo sat around a small table that took up half of a room while mountains of yarn and a small cushion took up the rest of the space. Beyond the little room there was the hall which lead to the door, and a hearth with chipped bricks behind him where the kettle had cooked. Now it was replaced with laundry and the humidity climbed to amounts that Bilbo wasn’t used to.

 

“Alright, lad.” Dwalin said from next to the fire, he filled up more than half the room with his bulk and attitude. “So you want to know how to get rid of your wee problem.”

 

Bilbo and Dori sputtered, spitting out their tea and spoke at the same time their outraged voices overlapping the larger dwarf’s hairy laugh. “How dare you be so crass with him,”

 

“It’s bigger than wee.” Bilbo pouted, not really convincing considering his size. He was even smaller than Ori, who was younger than him.

 

 

“Nonetheless,” Dwalin’s shoulders shook with the remnants of his laughing. The warrior looked around the house, clearly missing his other half. “It won’t be too terrible of an issue. Though, with all due respect, Master Bilbo, this is something you should have a discussion with your father.”

 

“Have you seen the dolls lately, Master Dwalin?” Bilbo looked sideways at his training master, the dwarf could look cowed by a simple look from his younger prospective mate, but attempting a similar look to Dwalin did nothing to help. The dwarrow only chuckled and shook his head in the negative. “They’re anatomically correct, now. He had one that’s carved in Thorin’s assumed likeness, even clothed I dare not look at it.”

 

“Crass indeed,” Dori huffed dispassionately. His cheeks still blossomed red as poppy’s and he shifted in his seat at the discomfort of sitting through such indecent talk with a minor. “This poor lad will be scarred enough with your teachings, sir, so don’t tease him.”

 

“Lest we ask for a favor,” Nori said as he perched on Ori’s stool next to the lad’s yarn. He sharpened his knife on a whetstone as casual as you please while watching Dwalin with eager eyes. Bilbo saw the rare event of the warrior shiver in dread anticipation and attempted not to react by laughing outright.

 

“Well,” Dwalin cleared his throat nervously, he fidgeted where he stood next to the fire, the heat and humidity not bothering him overly much. “I do agree that the wee humunculus’ would be too taxing on your already fragile nerves, Bilbo, Dori’s right. Your constitution and integrity is what’s important and we must bar it from corruption where we can.”

 

“Then why did I ask you?” Bilbo quipped with a smirk on his pink lips. Dwalin leveled the dwarfling with a glare and he shrank under it.

 

“You can still ask your uncles. I’m sure Bofur is ready with his dolls just up the way.” Dwalin threatened and Bilbo reacted the way Dwalin intended. The boy shut his mouth with a snap and settled into his chair.

 

By the end of the ‘lesson’ Bilbo was red with embarrassment but fuller with knowledge and eagerness to attempt some of the baser techniques Dwalin suggested. All dwarrow’s present were red, except Nori, who just chuckled as evilly as possible and taunted the larger dwarf. And by Bilbo’s – meager – beard Smaug had kept his own shameful ribbing to himself.

 

Bilbo was in the middle of his thoughts on Thorin, and though he knew he should keep his thoughts pure for his prince, those kind of thoughts was what had gotten him into this trouble in the first place, when he stumbled on a child lying in the middle of the street. Quick to chastise the child for being out so late, he realized the girl was huddling as tightly as possible and quaking in fear. Dumbfounded Bilbo looked around for the child’s parents, curious as to where they were, or for any adult taking care of her.

 

“Are you alright, little one?” Bilbo cooed, but the child shook even more. Confused he began rubbing her back, “It’s alright, it was my fault, and I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you.” Bilbo tried to coax the young one out of her ball but she wouldn’t move. “Look, I said I was sorry, and I am, but you have to get out of the street, you could get run over by a cart and then where will you be?”

 

The girl let out a whimper, as if in pain, and said something that suspiciously sounded like ‘hungry’. Concerned even more for her wellbeing, considering that she was in all but rags and her hair was extremely unkempt, he gathered her up in his arms and carried her off the path.

 

“Why don’t you head on home, then, and eat,” Bilbo tried to say it as kindly as he could, he knew how hunger pains hurt, so he was cautious with his tone to assuage in any way he could.

 

“I don’t have – a home,” the child winced and cried even more in pain. She hid her face in Bilbo’s training clothes and wept. Used to cuddling a crying child Bilbo held her close and thought about his next question.

 

“What happened to your home?” Bilbo knew most of the homes down here had either burned away or crumbled into unsalvageable messes. This child’s house may have been a victim of the multiple orc raids since the very first almost two years ago now.

 

“Gone.” She cried harder, “And my parents, too.”

 

“Who’s taking care of you?”

 

“No one.” She sobbed and Bilbo’s blood ran cold, there should always be an adult ready to help a child, regardless of blood ties, just look at him and his family.

 

“Let’s find you someone then.” Bilbo got up, and made his way toward a food stall first, and bought the last few cheese biscuits and grilled meat on a stick. The child wolfed down the food and complained about her stomach hurting for a different reason. Bilbo really should have remembered to have her eat slowly. He was just happy she hadn’t brought the food back up, yet.

 

After a few paces, when she’d finished eating, Bilbo went to a nearby house, one he thought he may have remembered belonging to a friend of his father’s, and knocked. The door opened to the same dwarrow he’d remembered delivering foodstuffs to, except that he was far thinner and paler than before.

 

“Oh, erm, sorry to disrupt your evening,” Bilbo caught himself using his etiquette he’d been taught a few months back. He was surprised that they’d stuck. “But I was wondering if you could help this child. I would myself, but-“

 

“I’m sorry, Sire,” the dwarrow had recognized him, Bilbo knew by the tightness around his eyes, the knee injury Bilbo’d helped incur on the dwarrow as a knee-high sprout of a child resonated through these years. “But I’m having trouble feeding what’s left of my family.” He scratched at his beard, lice seen falling and crawling over his fingers. Bilbo shivered and inhaled a gasp. Dwarves had never had this sort of problem, ever. Not in his years of knowledge at least. Dwarves kept their beards and moustaches clean, proper, and as a sign of pride, but to allow such defilement as louse was unheard of. “Bilbo, lad, after the siege none of the surviving families have been doing well. We are poorer than ever before, and the economy has plummeted.”

 

“That’s not true!” Bilbo caught himself defending the upper levels. There was no sign of troubles up there, where he lived, everyone was able to find jobs and food where needed. Sure things were sometimes tight for his own family, but that was because there were so many of them and the bakery wasn’t flourishing as it once had down here on their street.

 

Bilbo made himself look around and there he could see it as plain as day, there were more than just this child laying in the streets. It was a shame on Moria and her leaders, to allow this sort of thing from happening. Moria’s people, the hardest working, were sleeping in the streets, and some, Bilbo knew, had no jobs.

 

This was the first time Bilbo was finally able to open his eyes and see that there was a real problem down here, here in Moria’s heart, not out in the empty fields where Orcs flee from Moria. The shame and the anger burned equally hot in Bilbo spreading from deep in his chest to boil his brain and make him want to lash out. But reacting in anger wouldn’t help these people.

 

“I have coin, Frir, if you can take this child and get your own family food.” Bilbo rushed, his energy spiking after such an embarrassing talk with his training master. Bilbo felt a spike of foreign anger thrumming on the invisible string of his and Smaug’s bond. It was strange, the deeper the connection the more that Bilbo could feel other things, like the beat of Smaug’s wings as he roared in outrage, or the heat in his belly, but that could easily have been his own anger simmering.

 

“Of course, Bilbo, I hadn’t meant-“ Frir tried to apologize for something Bilbo didn’t want to hear just yet. It wasn’t Frir’s fault that he couldn’t afford food for even his family.

 

“It’s fine. Here,” Bilbo dug out a few coin’s he kept, added a bit more and gave Frir instructions to pass out coins to those on this block, it was all that Bilbo could do for now. Frir had gained energy, borrowed from the lad that he’d watched grow, and took the still whimpering child into the house – which was really a shack.

 

Bilbo left Frir and his family to it and back tracked to Dori’s house. His anger still simmering, leftover’s from Smaug, and attempted to calm himself before he set off something in Dori. The gentledwarf was ever such a bleeding heart, he knew that he could depend on him.

 

Reaching the even smaller flat above the tea shoppe Bilbo didn’t even bother knocking and barged into the sitting room where Dori, Nori, and Dwalin had been in the middle of a deep discussion themselves.

 

“Excuse me, Masters,” Bilbo attempted to keep his etiquette, knowing he’d only have to deal with more anger and frustration later in life and keeping a level head now was good practice, even though all he really wanted to do was rail. “I have a bit of a problem I know you could help me with.”

 

“By Mahal’s beard, lad,” Nori near shouted, “haven’t you tortured us enough with that?!”

 

“Nori,” Dori chastised, “we must help the prince’s betrothed however we can.” The near silver-haired dwarf turned politely towards Bilbo, smile on his lovely cheeks. “Now, Sire, what would be your problem?”

 

“It isn’t quite what you think,” Bilbo cut off whatever Dwalin and Nori were about to race to say, “but rather something that I haven’t been aware of until just now.”

 

The three conspirators gave one another a look reminiscent of another set of three. The similarities were uncanny and quite frightening and Bilbo could feel their shared fear through the link to his brother.

 

“We were wondering when you’d ask, laddie.” Dwalin said.

 

“Since the constructions have begun it has been difficult-“ Dori began.

 

“To say the least,” Nori interrupted.

 

“The very least, for us to continue to thrive in these quarters. With the construction of the new tunnels, there has been less room for our people to live. Families have been disrupted and kicked out of their homes, and the Duke hasn’t set things right since.” Dori paused. “We were hoping to get the royal family to see this, but news to Erebor have been interceded by enemy spies and now all communication has ceased in favor of secrecy and protection of our Raven’s and messengers. Dwalin was suggesting leaving Moria on his way to Erebor but such a small task would not excuse him for abandoning his post here as captain, master trainer, and future husband.”

 

“So you’ve allowed him to wed Ori?” Bilbo asked, these past few months’ time didn’t allow any light to the pair’s absolute decision on Ori and Dwalin’s marriage, so this news now was a surprise.

 

“Of course,” Nori crowed, “but he’s having to commit to favors. Certain favors that won’t hurt his status, but make him humble enough for our little brother.”

 

Oh, if the elder Ri brother’s thought that Ori was in anyway innocent and sheltered they had another thing coming. It was Dwalin that kept Ori at arm’s length when together, the lad’s youthful wants and desires burned hotter than Dwalin’s willpower, also, the old librarian Ori worked with was full of many stories of his own experiences. Also, Bilbo’s seen Ori’s more private illustrations, and Bofur’s wooden imitations were no match, he was sure.

 

“Never the less, I wish to do something.” Bilbo shook his head and tried to get his thoughts in order. “I can’t just sit around while our people suffer. Nor shall I close my eyes to it any longer. We have a right to live, to thrive, just as they do above. I still consider myself a part of _sarkhuh khiluz_ , even though I spend my days above. If it means my family and I would move back down here and use my stipend to feed the poor then so be it, I know they would not sit in luxury while our neighbors, our people, suffer.”

 

The trio looked to each other again, smiling in varying degrees. Dwalin stood up, roaring with laughter, and hugged the dwarfling. The guffaw rung Bilbo’s ear but he had no choice but to accept the excitement.

 

“Bless, you lad, bless you.” Dwalin said. “His Highness would be glad to hear you’ve got spine. And for you to use the same words he had – more or less – ach, you two were meant for another, no doubt.”

 

“No doubt.” Dori sat beaming.

 

\--

 

Bilbo lay curled behind Smaug’s head as it wrapped around his body as a goose would to sleep in the sun. While sleep evaded him, his thoughts kept wafting up as incense would, heavy with parfume, cloying and heady, it evoked within him something he’d forgotten he could wield. Courage. That first day, after they had lost their home and neighbors to the orcs, when they had fallen and he and Smaug had taken up arms alongside his brothers, that spark was there, a small blue flame ready to blaze bright. It was a controlled fire, for now, burning as hot as a candle, as wispy as a lamp, but it had the potential to spill from its confines and blaze as hot as grassland fire.

 

It was excitement, really, that kept the boys up. Smaug held his eyes closed but he was just as awake as Bilbo.

 

“That interesting, hm?” Smaug asked, his whisper like a land slide, scales glimmering golden against the torches. Bilbo pet his brother’s jaw, the sharp scales threatening to cut him open like a butcher’s knife, the horns as thick as a sapling and still bone white in its recent growth. Bilbo remembers when he could hold Smaug in his arms like a babe, and now, his dragon-brother held him.

 

“You haven’t the faintest.” Though that was a lie. Smaug could feel all of Bilbo’s feelings, being this close. “To see where our friends and neighbors have fallen to, it’s a shame, Smaug.” Bilbo shifted, his legs getting too cold, he delved deeper between neck and body. “The orcs still ravage the very edges of the city, the forges constantly under attack. And it’s only now that any of the soldiers are telling me this at all.”

 

“All because Dwalin had said something?” Smaug asked, getting sleepy.

 

“No,” Bilbo said, “because I’m finally asking.”

 

“They should have told you before.”

 

“Why should they?” Bilbo countered, sounding a touch angry.

 

“You are a soldier like them. You, we, are their brothers, they owe that to us.” Smaug said, fluttering his wings and stirring the Raven’s just above them. They cawed their displeasure but quickly fell into slumber again.

 

“They owe us nothing, Smaug. We are but children in their eyes, barely old enough to train let alone fraught ourselves with the workings of twisted politics set to help the rich.” Bilbo grumped and tried to beat down a rogue scale against his shoulder.

 

“Don’t worry, father,” Smaug then turned to a son, the mercurial shift of their relationship never once offsetting Bilbo, his outlook was just as fluid when it came to the dragon that he’d raised. “We’ll change things, you’ll see.”

 

“I certainly hope so, my boy,” Bilbo pet Smaug, though he couldn’t feel it, thinking of the near future for once and not the six more years till he could next talk to Thorin. “I certainly hope so.”

 

That night, there were no dreams of bees in the sun. That night, he dreamed of Orcs in those same green fields.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sarkhuh Khiluz - Forge Family. An incorrect translation, I'm sure.
> 
> BTW, it's cannon here that Bilbo speaks Khuzdul. As he's been raised as a dwarf and no-one had ever seen a Hobbit to deny him otherwise, it only makes sense.

**Author's Note:**

> Yay? Nay?
> 
> Let me know!
> 
> More to come!
> 
> The officer isn't that much of a mystery is he? So why is Bilbo so clueless?


End file.
